


To Build a Home

by heartofcathedrals



Series: To Build a Home [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Asthma, Family, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-07 09:34:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 71,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofcathedrals/pseuds/heartofcathedrals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles and Derek have recently adopted adorable blue-eyed toddler Isaac Lahey and the stress of helping him through the remnants of his abusive past homelife is threatening to tear them apart. Can the two build the home and family they've always wanted, or will it crumble before they even get started?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You told me that this trip was only going to be for two days,” Stiles whisper-yelled into the phone the morning of Christmas Eve, afraid to startle their three-year-old, Isaac, who was watching a movie in the living room. “We’re on day four here, Derek!”

“We’re just working a few last minute things out with the account. I’ll be home for Christmas, Stiles. I promise that I’ll be home for Christmas,” Derek assured him as he took a minute in the bathroom of corporate to fix his tie in the mirror.

“I have all of these people coming over tomorrow and I can't get everything done by myself. And Isaac's got a cold so I've been giving him breathing treatments every four hours like clockwork," Stiles whispered, taking a shaky breath in as he pinched his nose. The stress of being on his own for the past few days, working full time, decorating, and tending to a sick child finally taking its toll.

“This is the biggest account I’ve ever been involved with and it’s bringing in a lot more money than usual. I could get a promotion if everything goes smoothly today. I can’t just up and leave, Stiles! You know that. We’ve talked about this before,” Derek argued.

“When’s your flight,” Stiles sighed and asked as he pushed a hand through his hair, afraid to know the answer.

“Two o’clock your time. I should be home by four as long as the snow here in Chicago holds out.”

“Just get home safe, okay?”

“Gotta go. Love you,” Derek said quickly, disconnecting the call before Stiles could even answer back.

He let the phone fall back into its cradle by the stairs and rubbed his face to stay awake, oven timer beginning to sound, the short beeps reminding him that there were two pies ready to be pulled and cooled. With a deep breath he went for the kitchen, stopping just long enough to catch Isaac propped up with pillows on the couch to make his breathing easier, eyes drooping in exhaustion. "I need you here, Derek," he mumbled as he turned and leaned his forehead against the kitchen wall with another deep breath, hoping that he had the strength to keep the act up for just a few more hours.

x

The snow was heavy by the time Derek’s flight was scheduled to leave Chicago, causing his flight to be delayed by five hours, which left him standing alone at the arrivals section of LAX at nine thirty. He ended up calling a cab, not wanting Stiles to pull Isaac out in the rainy weather that was starting to build up. He knew things were shaky between them, that leaving him alone for nearly a week with Isaac battling a cold wasn’t fair, especially since Stiles had had a full workweek himself and they were hosting Christmas for all of their friends and family the very next day.

Still, as the cab pulled away from the house he quietly unlocked the door and lifted his small suitcase over the saddle lip, smiling when he noticed that the house was dark but that the bright lights of the Christmas tree were enough to cast a rainbowed reflection across the stairwell in front of him. As he made his way into the living room, he saw that Stiles and Isaac were passed out on the couch, the toddler belly-down on Stiles’ chest, both breathing slow and even. Derek had to take a picture, updating his Facebook with the caption: Love that this is what I came home to this Christmas.

He kneeled down beside the couch and softly placed a hand on Stiles’ shoulder, his husband’s eyes blinking open and adjusting to the light, finally catching with Derek’s. “Shh,” Derek instructed, nodding towards Isaac, who he slowly lifted off of Stiles and pulled against himself, a few half-asleep coughs escaping from the small child as Derek held him close and kissed him on the forehead. 

“He tried to wait up for you,” Stiles said, voice low as he followed Derek, still in his suit and tie, slowly up the stairs.

“If you’re trying to make me feel guilty about this past week, just stop,” Derek commanded, trying to keep his tone down. “I just spent the last twelve hours working my ass off and hurrying to get home to see you guys. I’m exhausted.”

“He did a treatment about a half hour ago, so he should be good until about three,” Stiles yawned and stretched, purposely ignoring Derek’s anger as they stopped in the entranceway to Isaac’s room. “I’m going to bed,” he said, turning away before Derek could even answer, knowing that it would leave enough of a mark.


	2. Chapter 2

At first, Derek thought that the murmur that had pulled him from the depths of sleep was just that of Stiles beside him, some typical mid-night babble that his husband was famous for. He’d rolled over, sighed, and let his eyelids close, drifting quickly back into the dream he’d been having.

But the deep, croupy coughs that followed and echoed down the hallway and from the baby monitor on his nightstand had him fighting the tangle of covers around him. “Isaac,” he announced loudly enough to wake Stiles, who scrambled out of bed and followed him.

Derek didn’t have to flip the light switch to know their three year old son was in the throes of an asthma attack, cheeks red and stained with tears from fighting for breath, body hunched in the fetal position as his airways spasmed and caused him to cough between wheezy inhales. The inhaler and spacer were in Derek’s hands before Stiles could even turn Isaac’s blue whale lamp on, the one they’d bought just after they got the phone call that Isaac was going to be theirs. Once the light was on, Stiles could see that Isaac was crying and gasping at the same time, panic in his sweet blue eyes enough to make Stiles’ heart ache as he pulled him into his lap. 

“Relax, Isaac. It’s okay,” Derek soothed as he shook the inhaler and connected it to the spacer, fitting the mask on the toddler’s tiny face. “Just breathe, baby boy. It’ll be over soon,” he cooed as he gave Isaac two puffs of the medication, finally deciding on a third just in case. Stiles cradled Isaac in his arms, gently pushing his tiny blonde curls out of his face as he inhaled the medicine through shaky breaths.

“He didn’t fight the medicine this time,” Stiles smiled once Isaac’s coughing slowed, breathing still ragged but albuterol obviously taking its desired effect.

“I think he knew it would help. Sounds congested, doesn’t he?” Derek frowned, feeling Isaac’s forehead and cheek

“He’s warm,” Stiles agreed as he did the same, watching as Derek got up and pulled the baby thermometer from the top drawer of Isaac’s dresser. He gently placed the thermometer in the toddler’s ear, Isaac wincing in pain before he started to cry again, breaths becoming hiccups as Stiles held him still. When the number 102.1 flashed in red, Derek sighed heavily and rubbed his face, knowing they’d be spending at least the next twelve hours in the hospital.

“Go warm the car up. I’ll pack some things,” Stiles said, the exhaustion in his voice too obvious to ignore as he stood up and rocked the feverish toddler from side to side.

x

If Derek had learned anything in their four months with Isaac, it was that the child hated stimulation. And hospitals, he’d realized early on, were the worst, the fluorescent lighting, noisy waiting rooms, and general amount of people too much for a child that flinched at your every move to handle.

“His oxygen levels are low and his wheezing concerns me. How long has he had the cough?” the short brunette doctor who had introduced herself as Dr. Laska asked as she listened to Isaac’s chest. Derek looked over to Stiles for an answer, unable to remember which phone conversation it had come up in. 

“About four days. I figured it was just a cold,” Stiles shrugged, the bags under his eyes too obvious for Derek to ignore. “I…I’ve been on my own for the last week,” he continued, looking over at Derek. “And with the craziness before the holidays I couldn’t get him into the pediatrician’s,” Stiles sighed, feeling like a bad parent for what felt like the millionth time since he’d first held Isaac.

“I’m not here to play bad cop,” the doctor smiled before pulling her stethoscope from her ears and putting it back around her neck. “You’re new parents and you’re new to asthma.”

“Actually, that’s not true. The second part, at least,” Stiles sighed and pulled out his own inhaler. “I should have known better.” 

“It sounds like pneumonia. I’m going to start a breathing treatment and give him some Tylenol to whip that fever while we wait for an x-ray,” Dr. Laska explained before grabbing Isaac’s chart and leaving the room. 

Stiles walked to Isaac’s bedside and parted the toddler’s blonde curls, watching with tears as his son’s whole body worked for each and every breath against the pillows. “This is all my fault,” he sniffled, trying to keep from getting emotional but knowing it was only a matter of time before the tears began to fall.

He expected Derek to come up from behind and embrace him, put his arms around his waist and rest his head on his shoulder, but there was nothing. Not a word, not a sound, not a movement from Derek who stood at the foot of Isaac’s bed and looked at the floor, trying to fight the anger that was building up inside, threatening to show itself in the form of choice words. 

“This is not how I wanted to spend our first Christmas with Isaac,” Derek said through gritted teeth, unable to let his eyes meet Stiles’.

“Y-you left me alone for nearly a week,” Stiles whispered in defense, fighting the tears that were welling up in his eyes and the guilt that was balling up in his stomach. “My first graders had their Christmas play and I had progress reports due and Isaac had _his_ Christmas play,” he continued, tone low to keep from startling Isaac. “And then I was decorating and baking and cleaning and making sure Isaac got all of his meds and I had to do it all on my own, Derek. _All on my own_.” 

“Pneumonia,” Derek’s voice boomed as he paced around the room, jaw set as he shook his head. “Jesus, Stiles! Do you know how dangerous that is for a kid, let alone one with asthma?”

“What, you think I don’t know that?” Stiles cried, tears finally sliding down his red cheeks. 

“Do you ever think about anyone but yourself?!”

Stiles’ mouth opened at the ridiculousness of the question, a wheeze coming out in the place of words. He quickly tried to brush it off by tending to Isaac, who was whimpering, inhales having become gaspy hiccups that Stiles knew were never a good sign.

“Hey,” Stiles soothed as he forced a smile and pushed Isaac’s hair out of his face. “It’s okay, honey. Papa’s just sad that you’re sick. Dr. Laska’s getting your medicine right now.” Isaac continued to sob, face growing red as he coughed heavily, alarms on the monitor beside the bed going off.

“I think you should leave,” Derek said as he came to the other side of Isaac’s bed and pulled the rail down so that he could hold his son and calm him down. “You’re making him upset and now he can barely breathe.” 

_“I’m_ making him upset?”

“I think you need to remove yourself from the situation,” Derek said, their eyes meeting as he held Isaac against his chest, the coldness in his voice reminding Stiles of a Derek he’d known a long, long time ago. Stiles swallowed to keep his wheezing from growing more audible and took a deep breath to keep more tears from falling. Because he knew that everything Derek had said was pure impulse, that he often said things he didn’t mean when he was angry. 

Stiles wanted to stay with Isaac more than anything, to comfort his baby boy until he was breathing easy again, but the way Derek had locked eyes with his made him wonder if somehow things were different this time, made him question whether or not the anger was just temporary. He backed up slowly and exited the room, wheezing picking up as he searched for the nearest stairwell.


	3. Chapter 3

Stiles sat in the stairwell between the seventh and eighth floors with his head in his hands, cool air helping to calm the wheezing that had started during his argument with Derek. He moved only to dial his father, resting the side of his head against the cold wall as he listened to the endless ringing, praying his father would pick up because he wasn’t quite sure what he would do if he didn’t.

“I’m a horrible father,” he mumbled when he heard the Sheriff’s groggy voice on the other end, tears cascading again through silent sobs.

“Stiles,” the Sheriff sighed, half-asleep and rubbing his eyes to wake up. “You’re not a bad-”

“Isaac has pneumonia and he’s in the hospital on Christmas and it’s my fault that it got to this point because I was too busy with work and shopping and-”

“Stiles,” his father warned, but he continued anyway.

“-and cleaning and baking and decorating and wrapping-”

“Stiles!” he yelled just as he always had when his son’s anxiety would take over and cause him to ramble. “Just take a deep breath, okay? You’re going to send yourself into an attack and you won’t be able to be there for Isaac if you’re in a hospital bed yourself. I can already hear you wheezing through the damn phone!”

Stiles nodded even though no one could see him and took a shaky breath, adjusting the phone against his ear as the tears continued to fall but the sobbing subsided. “I made sure that he had his preventer medications every day,” he explained, voice barely a whisper. “I set my phone every four hours to make sure he did his breathing treatments. I stayed up all night listening to the baby monitor. I checked on him in the middle of the night. How did I miss something this big?”

“Isaac is prone to things like pneumonia, Stiles. It’s not your fault that he’s sick. Don’t you remember what it was like when you were little?”

“But this is different, Dad. You never let your guard down with me.”

“It’s not about whether you have your guard up or not,” he explained. “You can’t control everything that happens to him, Stiles. Just because you planned ahead doesn’t mean things will go the way you want them.” For a moment he wondered if his father was talking about Isaac or his mother, but he didn’t want to go there. Not at that moment, at least. “Something tells me there’s more to this than just Isaac being sick.” 

“You mean like Derek hating me right now?” he asked with a sniffle.

“Derek doesn’t hate you,” his father said.

“Oh, so he told me to leave the room because he loves me?” Stiles had to hold his breath after that one to keep from letting a sob out.

“He what?!”

Stiles took a shallow breath and said, “Isaac was getting upset that we were fighting so he told me to leave and now I’m sitting in the stairwell trying to calm down.” He could hear his wheeze returning, his lungs tightening as he tried to stop the image of Isaac crying and gasping from reappearing. “I feel like I’m completely on my own here,” he admitted, squeezing his eyes shut to keep the tears back.

“You aren’t on your own, though,” his father said, voice much softer than before. “Derek is upset, but he doesn’t hate you. You’ve both been working non-stop, all while learning how to be parents and do the best by Isaac.” With his free hand, Stiles pulled his inhaler from his pocket and shook it before giving himself a puff. “What you and Derek are doing is a very different kind of parenting because you’re trying to undo all of the hurt and pain that he gained from his last home and fill those holes with unconditional love. And you’re not a horrible father for wishing your son wasn’t sick and in pain right now. If anything, that shows how much you care and how seriously you take your role in Isaac’s life.”

Stiles just sniffled and wondered how many times his father had felt like this. How many times he’d sat in the stairwell of this very hospital thinking that everything was spiraling out of his control and that there was no way to fix it. He took another puff of medicine and leaned his head back against the wall.

“Here’s what you’re going to do: After I hang up, you’re going to find a moment, one from the past four months that made you stop and think that creating a family with Derek by adopting Isaac was the best thing that could have ever happened to you. And then you’re going to go to Isaac’s room and be with your family.”

“But-”

“I love you,” his father said before disconnecting the call, leaving Stiles panicked for a few seconds before he put his phone and inhaler down and took the deepest breath he could manage. Following his father’s advice, he recalled the night in the bathtub about a month earlier when Isaac had had another one of his episodes. They’d been occurring less frequently as the toddler adjusted, but that didn’t make Stiles hate them any less.

"Daddy?" Isaac had asked as he held his plastic toy boat in his lap, splashing and giggling having stopped just a few seconds earlier.

“Hmm?”

"Is that lady gonna come back and take me fwom you and Papa?"

"Never, why would you ask that?" Stiles asked as he gently wiped Isaac’s back with a soft washcloth.

"She took me fwom my last Daddy," he sniffled. "'Cause I was bad."

"Honey,” Stiles sighed as he lifted Isaac’s chin. “You weren't bad. Not at all. Your father was hurting you and that's not what parents are supposed to do.”

"I-I don't want her to take me away again," Isaac cried as he pulled his head away from Stiles’ grip, dropping the toy boat and curling into himself as his sobbing took over. "S-she's gonna take me away again! I don’t want to go away," he screeched over and over as Stiles tried to comfort him unsuccessfully, Derek appearing in the doorway after hearing the commotion.

"She's not going take you away from us, Isaac. No one is going to take you,” he cooed, afraid to wrap the toddler in a towel and remove him from the tub because the last time he’d done that Isaac had kicked him in the stomach. Hard. “We love you and you're staying right here with us.”

"Isaac," Derek said as he kneeled beside the tub, Stiles’ heart breaking at the thought that the toddler had no idea what was going on or why and that he thought that everything that had happened was because he was the one that had done something wrong. "We love you more than anything else and we are yours to keep forever, okay?" He gently stroked Isaac’s hair, even after the toddler tried pulling away in fear, and repeated the action for nearly ten minutes before the toddler released his balled fists and calmed down, his little sniffles turning into hiccups before he finally whispered, "Otay."

Later that night, as Stiles and Derek were tucking him into bed, Isaac had looked at them with his bright blue eyes and said, “Love you, Daddy. Love you, Papa.” Stiles paused with the comforter in his hands, tears forming in his eyes as his heart melted. "You are the sweetest little boy any parent could ask for," he finally whispered as he kissed his cheek.

“We love you, too, baby boy,” Derek smiled before giving Isaac a kiss on his forehead. The two watched from the partially cracked doorway with their fingers entwined, both refusing to move until they were sure Isaac was fast asleep, safe and sound.


	4. Chapter 4

“How is he?” Stiles asked quietly from the doorway, hands deep in his pockets, afraid to enter completely in case Derek was still in the mood to argue. 

“They gave him something to help him sleep while he does his breathing treatment,” Derek explained as he held Isaac’s tiny hand and gently moved his thumb over it, eyes refusing to stray from his son. “They’re going to start IV antibiotics and steroids after they get a chest x-ray.” 

Stiles pulled his lips inward and took a deep breath before deciding it was safe to pull a chair to the other side of Isaac’s bed and sit down. He’d followed his father’s two directions, but now, with Isaac in a hospital gown breathing from a mask as numerous wires snaked in and out from beneath the white blanket over him, he was lost. He’d been there before and yet he still felt like he didn’t know where to go next. Because his husband was sitting across from him, unwilling to let their eyes meet, jaw still locked as he watched every inhale and exhale, none easy, that their son attempted. 

“Go ahead. Blame me,” Stiles whispered. “Tell me that this is all my fault and that tonight should have been different.” 

Derek sighed softly and rubbed his face with his free hand. “I’m not going to argue about this with Isaac in the room, and I’m not leaving him right now.” 

“Then tell me that this isn’t my fault,” Stiles said, tears falling slowly down his cheeks. “And that you love me and we’re in this as a family.” 

“I love you and we’re in this as a family,” Derek said, voice monotone. 

“That wasn’t very convincing,” Stiles sniffled. 

“Was it supposed to be?” 

“God, Derek. Can’t you just let your defenses down this one time?” Stiles asked, eyes pleading as the tears streamed over his lips. “For Isaac? For us?” Derek just kept his eyes on his son and continued to hold his little hand. 

“I can see beneath all of the anger and pain that you use as a shield,” Stiles stated. “And I know that when you say things like I think you need to remove yourself from the situation and Was it supposed to be that you regret them almost immediately afterwards. That you replay the conversations in your head and let them eat you up on the inside.” Stiles saw Derek’s jaw move a little at the last comment, but there were no words to follow. 

“Come on, Der,” he tried. “I know that it’s hard for you to stop spewing hurtful, sarcastic comments once you start. I know that and I still love you, which is why I’m asking you to try right now and have this conversation with me. For Isaac,” Stiles said. “Because he’s scared and us fighting isn’t going to make him better.” 

At the mention of Isaac’s fear, Derek titled his head back and took a deep breath, making Stiles wonder if Derek was trying to keep tears from falling or if he was just flat out annoyed at Stiles’ insistent rambling. 

“Would you please say something?” Stiles begged, breaths quickening as he waited for a sign that he was getting through to his husband. The electricity was flowing through his body now, making him lift his right heel repeatedly and fidget his hands in his lap. He almost got up to pace around the room, but when Derek folded into himself and let silent sobs rack his body as wet tears fell, Stiles just licked his lips and let them part, unsure of what to do. Because Derek, like Isaac, didn’t always do well with touch when he was emotional, and Stiles was sure that even one hand on his shoulder might trigger the person inside that Stiles had only seen once before and someone Stiles never wanted to encounter again. 

“Der,” he whispered. “You don’t have to cry,” he explained, even though he was crying too. “It’s okay if you’re mad at me.” 

“I’m not mad at you!” Derek groaned through his tears. “It’s not you.” 

“You…you’re mad at yourself?” Stiles asked, confused. “This isn’t anyone’s fault, Derek. It’s been a long week and we’ve only been doing this whole parenting thing for four months.” Derek just shook his head in his hands. “Things like this are going to happen,” Stiles said, voice softer. “I’m going to stress myself out because my brain is always racing, Isaac’s going to get sick because of his asthma, and you’re going to go away on business so that we can stay financially stable. We’re going to argue about stupid little things that will only seem stupid in retrospect and that’s okay. It’s…normal. This is what families do.” 

“But I’m so bad at this,” Derek responded, voice shaky. “I thought that maybe I could work on it, be a better father for Isaac as time went on, but obviously it isn’t working.” 

“What are you talking about? You are amazing with Isaac,” Stiles assured him. 

“Yeah, right,” Derek sniffled, still afraid to show his face. “I just end up fucking everything up. I should have been home.” 

Stiles thought back to their first month with Isaac and how Derek had been afraid to hold him. Actually, Derek had been afraid to interact with Isaac in any sense of the word, so Stiles suggested that him and Isaac spend some one-on-one time together each day. There was one particular night, about three weeks in, where Derek had set a bath for Isaac, careful to make sure that the water was lukewarm and full of the bubble bath Stiles had purchased at the store. The toddler splashed the water around him with sweet little laughs, loving the fluffy white beard of bubbles Derek had given him just moments before. 

Stiles had been looking up now and then at the video baby monitor between dishes just to make sure Derek and Isaac were okay; they hadn’t quite figured out Isaac’s strawberry allergy at that point, and Derek could be a little panicky whenever Isaac started wheezing. With the faucet running and overpowering the audio, he had almost missed what was now one of his favorite memories of the two. A high-pitched squeal from the toddler forced Stiles’ eyes to the screen and he laughed in relief when he realized it was just Derek blowing tufts of bubbles off of his hand. 

“You have no idea how much I love you already," Derek had laughed to himself as he gently lathered Isaac's hair with the watermelon shampoo a moment later, careful not to get the soap in his eyes even though the formula was tear-free. Isaac smiled sweetly up at Derek and squeezed his eyes shut as his hair was rinsed out. "You've already stolen my heart, little Isaac," Derek smiled as he drained the tub and lifted him out, wrapping him in a towel and carrying him off screen. 

Stiles felt droplets of warm water hitting his sock, alerting him to dripping pot he’d been washing but had paused with as he’d watched the monitor. He’d shaken his head and smiled as he finished the dishes, knowing that the progress Derek had made in his relationship with Isaac was proof that yes, they had made the right decision to adopt him. And as he shared this memory with Derek out loud as they waited for the doctor to return, the two held hands and each one of Isaac’s, tears replaced by a set of hopeful smiles. 


	5. Chapter 5

“Children,” Stiles stated, though it was more a question than anything else, and smiled at Derek. The two were tangled in the covers, exhausted from moving into their new house on Archer the day before. This was two and a half years before Isaac had come into their lives, when the prospect of children was still an open topic. 

“No,” Derek had said as he loosely held Stiles’ hand, late morning sunlight streaming through the window and illuminating their bodies. 

“Really?” 

“Yes. Next topic.” 

“Why not?” 

“You told me that you were going to work on letting topics I was uncomfortable with go, and I’m holding up my end of the bargain by asking you very kindly to drop it.” 

“Have you at least thought about it?” he asked, ignoring Derek’s statement. 

There was the weight of Derek’s end of the comforter on Stiles just before he heard Derek’s feet pad heavily across the wooden floor. The bathroom door slammed loudly a moment later. 

x

The topic hung between them for the rest of the day, tension finally causing Derek to explode with, “Because I can’t imagine myself being responsible for someone else, okay?” in the middle of dinner. He glared at Stiles from across the table, fork hanging awkwardly from his hand over his plate.

“But you’re an Alpha now,” Stiles said mid-chew, confused. 

“It’s different.” 

Stiles swallowed his food. “You literally take care of, like, four people that act like children on a daily basis. How would having your own be any different?” 

“It’s easy for you to want kids. You work with first graders,” Derek groaned as he moved his string beans and mashed potatoes around his plate with his fork. 

“My job isn’t the reason I want children,” Stiles explained. 

“You call your students your kids all the time.” 

“Yeah, and I get to send them home at the end of the day. It’s different.” 

“Exactly. Just like being the Alpha is different.” 

Stiles had just groaned, unable to think of a witty come-back, and let the topic drop. 

x

It wasn’t until a year and a half later, when Derek came to the elementary school to help with a field trip after a class parent called in sick, that Stiles saw him interact with children for the first time. 

“Thanks for coming so quickly. I owe you big time,” Stiles said as he handed Derek a plastic baggie with a bottle of Benadryl and a lime green box that read epi-pen jr before corralling four first graders around him. 

“What’s this?” Derek asked as he held the bag up, eyebrows lifting. 

“Jake’s got a peanut allergy,” he explained as he looked away to do a last minute head count. 

“I can’t do this, Stiles.” Derek was shaking his head, pushing the bag back at him. 

“Mr. _S_ ,” Stiles corrected him as he pushed the bag against Derek’s chest. “And yes, you can.” 

“What if-” Derek started but was cut off when Stiles initiated some kind of attention-grabbing game that had the kids following his Simon-Says-like directions. The hallway quieted almost immediately, smiles spreading across the sea of first graders. 

x

“You were really good with them,” Stiles smiled as he handed Derek a cold water bottle once the bus circle had emptied and it was just the two of them back in the classroom. “I didn’t hear a peep from your group during the tour.” 

“That’s because they were scared of me,” Derek stated as he unscrewed the cap. “Except for that girl Gracie. God, she’s like a mini you; she wouldn’t shut the hell up once we took a break for lunch!” He took a long sip and recapped the bottle before sitting down on a desk and letting his head hang down. 

Stiles laughed as he gathered his plan book and jacket. “Hey, thanks for coming to the rescue today.” 

“You owe me,” Derek mumbled in exhaustion. 

“Well, I had something specific in mind, but if you’re too tired…” Derek’s head shot up quickly, one eyebrow lifting. “Meet you at home in ten?” Stiles asked with a sly smile. 

x

“So I think,” Derek whispered between kisses where Stiles had his back to the wall of the stairwell. “That maybe kids wouldn’t be such a bad thing.” 

Stiles pulled his head away, surprised by the comment. 

“What?” 

“You’ve been thinking about it?” Stiles asked. “Like seriously thinking about it?” 

“Yeah,” Derek replied nervously, looking away as his hands fell and landed Stiles’ hips. 

“What made you change your mind?” 

“I don’t know.” Derek shifted his weight. “I guess things are just getting really serious between us and now that I’m older the concept of kids isn’t so scary.” 

“Oh,” Stiles said, lips parted as he processed what was happening. 

“That’s all you have to say? ‘Oh’?” 

“I’m just…surprised. Can’t I be surprised?!” Stiles joked, which had Derek laughing, breaking the awkwardness that filled the air between them. Without another word their lips met, Stiles’ contentment with Derek’s confession forcing him to smile as butterflies filled his entire body. 

x

John Stilinski switched his lamp off once he ended the late night phone call with Stiles and rolled over in his bed, remembering the night nearly six months ago when he stood on the Lahey’s doorstep late last August after the neighbors had called about a domestic dispute. 

“We’ve got a 415 at 80 Birch Avenue. Third call this month,” dispatch reported. 

“Responding,” he’d answered into his CB as he put his lights on and increased his speed. 

“Be alert of possible 273A. CPS is already involved.” 

“Noted,” he said as he and his partner shared a look and shook their heads; cases with children always hit close to home for both of them because they were parents. 

John could barely listen to the drunken words the male at the door was mumbling minutes later because of the insistent crying and wheezing going on in the background. 

“Is that your son, sir?” John had asked in reference to the noise. 

“Isaac, stop crying!” the man had yelled, head turning towards the living room. 

“He asthmatic?” he’d asked, heart already pounding in his chest at the thought. 

“He’s fine,” the man assured him as he stumbled over himself and tried to recover by leaning against the doorframe. 

“He’s not fine; he’s having a severe asthma attack,” John stated as he pushed into the house to assess the child, which was how he ended up at the Beacon Hills Hospital ten minutes later with the blonde haired and blue eyed toddler wheezing heavily as he cradled him in his arms. 

The nurse tried to put the nebulizer mask over the toddler’s nose and mouth but he just pushed it away and continued to kick and scream in the Sheriff’s arms. “Let me,” John offered and the nurse nodded before handing him the mask. “Hey, little guy,” he cooed as he held the child in his arms and gently brushed his fingertips over his blonde curls, holding the mask on loosely with his free hand. “Shhh, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay.” By then Isaac’s breathing was nothing more than full-body attempts to get air and John couldn’t help but recall Stiles’ first attack. 

How he’d been fine running around the house one minute, his chest heaving the next. Stiles had fought the mask, too, and John had had to force it over his son’s mouth and nose through glossy eyes while his wife held his legs down. 

“Does he have a history of asthma?” 

“N-no, he’s always been healthy. Just a few ear infections here and there,” he’d answered frantically as he held the misting mask against his son’s face, breathing still labored, legs still trying to kick. 

“Gen, honey, the medicine is to help you breathe better. It’s okay. Mommy and Daddy are here. We’re not going anywhere,” his wife had cooed as she’d pushed her fingers lightly through his hair and down the side of his face. “We’re right here, baby,” she soothed, and John was sure that the only reason the tears pooling in his eyes didn’t end up falling the fact that he felt every muscle in his son’s body finally relax at his mother’s touch. 

“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you,” John assured the toddler with a soft voice as he cradled and rocked him gently. “The medicine will help you breathe easier. It’s okay. Shhh.” 

“His name’s Isaac,” the nurse smiled as she watched the way John handled the toddler. 

“That’s it, Isaac,” John smiled as the child relaxed, eyes drooping in exhaustion as his breathing finally began to even out. “Just breathe, honey.” 

“Poor kid’s here pretty often with his asthma. We have quite a file on him,” the nurse explained before leaving the room. 

“Sheriff Stilinski,” a young deputy’s voice boomed as he entered. 

“Shhh,” John warned as he nodded down towards Isaac, the toddler’s eyelids fluttering at the sudden noise. 

“Sorry, Sheriff,” he apologized, voice barely a whisper. “They found the wife. She, uh, she didn’t make it.” 

“Wife?” 

“The dispute was a little more involved than we originally thought,” he explained as he watched Isaac sleep, room quiet for a moment before he asked, “Is the kid gonna be okay?” 

“Yeah, it’s just an asthma attack. He’ll be fine once the medicine kicks in,” he explained, voice low. 

“So, uh, what’s gonna happen to him now?” 

“Probably foster care, maybe adoption.” 

x

He’d made the phone call to Stiles later that night as Isaac lay asleep in his arms, oxygen line running beneath his tiny nose and around his ears. 

“Dad? Everything okay?”

“How soon were you and Derek thinking of adopting?” 


	6. Chapter 6

“The x-rays confirmed the pneumonia. We’ve started antibiotics and steroids, but those will take a few hours to really kick in,” Dr. Laska explained as she pulled her stethoscope from her neck, secured the buds in her ears, and placed the metal disc against Isaac’s chest. 

“Is it okay that his heart rate is this high?” Derek asked as he pushed his fingers through Isaac’s hair, the fast paced beeping that had been coming from the monitor for a good forty minutes now making his own heart rate rise. 

“That’s just from the albuterol and his body fighting the infection. It’ll come down soon. His oxygen levels are lower than I’d hoped after that last treatment, though.” 

“Do we do more nebs, then? Wait it out until the antibiotics and steroids start to work?” Derek asked, eyes searching the doctor’s face for any clue as to what she might suggest. “He’s still having a hard time.” 

“Given his asthma and the severity of the pneumonia, there is something else we can do to make it easier for him to breathe,” the doctor offered as she wrote in Isaac’s chart. “That’s actually what I came in here to discuss.” Stiles felt his lungs tighten when he realized where the doctor was going with the conversation, head starting to shake at the idea. 

“I’m not putting my three year old on a ventilator,” Stiles argued sternly, lungs seizing in the process. “He’s…he’s too young.” 

“I think it’s the best shot we have at getting him breathing easier,” she explained. “His oxygen is in the mid-eighties and his lungs could use the rest.” 

“No,” Stiles said, the word coming out with a slight whine as he approached the doctor. 

“Stiles,” Derek whispered as he tried to physically pull his husband back toward him. 

“He might not need to be on that long depending on how quickly his oxygen comes up.” Dr. Laska clicked her pen shut and closed Isaac’s chart. “I’ll let you two talk it over and I’ll be back in a little while,” she said before leaving the room. 

“No,” Stiles cried as he shook his head back and forth, tears continuing to well as his breaths quickened. 

“I don’t like the idea any more than you do, but I want what’s best for Isaac.” 

“I’m not letting them shove a tube down his throat, Derek!” 

“He can barely breathe, Stiles!” Derek argued in a hushed tone. “Why won’t you agree with me on this?” 

“Because I know what it’s like,” he wheezed, “and I…I don’t want him to…to remember what...” 

“Okay, calm down,” Derek said as he guided Stiles over to a chair. “Where’s your inhaler?” Stiles went to pull it out of his pocket, but it wasn’t there. He looked up at Derek, eyes big as he continued to panic, wheezes growing deeper as he struggled to keep his breathing under control. 

Derek went through Isaac’s bag and pulled his inhaler out, watching as Stiles put it to his lips and breathed in two quick puffs of the medication, hands shaking as he closed his eyes and took deep breaths. “You’re a jittery mess, Stiles. How many puffs have you taken today?” 

“E-eight,” he rasped. 

“Eight?! You’ve been having trouble breathing all day?” 

“M-maybe,” he admitted as he rubbed his chest to try and get the burning feeling to leave. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” 

“Isaac,” he whispered. 

“Did you at least do a treatment?” 

“No time,” Stiles said as he closed his eyes and shook his head. 

“Jesus, Stiles. You can’t just-”

“Papa?” Isaac asked as he woke from the sedative, his voice slightly muted by the mask covering his mouth and nose. “Daddy?” he cried, panic beginning in the form of short, staccato inhales as Derek rushed to his bedside. 

“Hey, baby boy,” Derek cooed as he took Isaac’s hand in his and looked into his eyes. “Shh, it’s okay. I’m right here.” He watched as tears slid down Isaac’s cheeks, chest heaving as he fought for air. 

“M’scared,” he sniffled as he looked around at all of the wires and machines. “I know,” Derek assured him. 

“I wanna go home,” he sobbed before breaking into a violent coughing fit that left him curled in a ball and barely able to catch his breath. Stiles lifted his head as Isaac’s deep and productive coughs began and pulled himself across the room so that he was right across from Derek, body leaning heavily on the bedrail. His hand gently rubbed across Isaac’s back, the toddler’s pale skin half exposed due to the untied back of the hospital gown, rapid rise and fall of his son’s chest mixed with the sound of congested breathing forcing him to choke back a sob of his own. 

“I can’t watch him suffer anymore,” Derek whispered. “Please just say yes.” 

“Derek, no,” Stiles said, voice low as he shook his head. 

“What if he gets worse? Or it’s too late by the time you change your mind?” 

“We just need to give the medicine more time.” 

“Look at the monitor, Stiles,” Derek pointed, voice tinged with anger. “I know you know what all of those numbers mean. He’s getting sicker and the more time we spend arguing about this the longer we let Isaac suffer.” 

Stiles bit his lip, hating that he knew the significance every number on the monitor. Hours sitting by his mother’s bedside had taught him ranges and extremes, and Isaac’s numbers hadn’t shown any signs of improvement even though he’d had two breathing treatments, continuous oxygen, and high doses of IV antibiotics and steroids. 

“Okay,” Stiles sniffled as his hand left Isaac’s back. 

“Is that a _yes_?” Derek asked, to which Stiles just nodded as he covered his face with one hand, other gripping the metal bedrail tightly. 

x 

“It huwts,” Isaac whimpered ten minutes later as doctors and nurses crowded the room, exhaustion from working so hard to breathe visible in the way his eyelids drooped and covered the brightness in his deep blue eyes. 

“I know, baby. We’re trying to fix that. You’re just going to get a little sleepy again, okay?” Derek explained as he trailed his fingertips through Isaac’s hair, tears clouding his sight. 

“Otay,” Isaac rasped softly, chest still rising and falling quickly. 

“And when you wake up we’ll be right here,” Stiles tried to smile, voice cracking. Isaac’s eyes closed before he could say anything else, the doctor and nurses moving in quickly to intubate him. 

Stiles didn’t even care that he was wheezing as Derek held him close and let him sob into his jacket, the leather soft and warm against his face. 


	7. Chapter 7

Derek held Stiles close as he did a second breathing treatment in the reclining chair beside Isaac’s bed, mask fogging up each time he exhaled against the plastic. His wheezing had caught the attention of Dr. Laska, who’d then offered up a nebulizer without having them fill out paperwork or making Stiles wear a bracelet because she had felt horrible about their situation. 

So Derek listened to the steady humming and whooshing of the many machines in the room as he watched the clock on the wall reach 8 AM, focusing on the way Isaac’s heart monitor beeped evenly because it helped steady his own heart rate. He thought about letting it lull him to sleep since he’d barely gotten any on the plane or at home or sitting in the most uncomfortable chair he’d ever sat in, but he couldn’t get his mind or anxiety to shut off. Not with his child on a ventilator a foot away and his husband fighting an asthma flare in his arms. 

Asthma. Stiles had kept it a secret for eight months until that night their first August together when Derek woke suddenly, yawning for a few seconds before he realized Stiles was not in the bed beside him. He could hear that there was a light buzzing coming from the bathroom, light visible through the crack between the door and floor. Worried, he’d tried to pull the door open, only to find it was locked. 

“Stiles? What’s going on? Are you okay?” 

“Y-yeah,” he’d heard before Stiles broke into a coughing fit similar to the ones he’d been experiencing all week, the ones he’d brushed off as a late summer cold. 

“Why is the door locked?” 

“M’fine. Go back…go back to bed.” 

“You’re obviously not. Let me in,” Derek demanded as he wiggled the knob. Thankfully it was old and fell apart in his hands after he applied a decent amount of pressure and turned the knob completely to the left. 

Once inside, he watched as Stiles’ shoulders lifted and fell continuously, quickly, as though he didn’t have any control over how fast he was breathing. His lips were tight around a clear plastic mouthpiece of some sort with a reservoir of liquid attached at the bottom, tubing running from it to a small machine on the carpet. 

“Jesus, Stiles,” Derek whispered as he sat on the edge of the bathtub and put his hand on his boyfriend’s shoulder. His eyes fell on the red inhaler atop the counter, prescription sticker on the canister reading ‘Genim Stilinski’. “You have asthma?” Stiles had just closed his eyes and nodded, breathing still shallow and strained as he continued to suck in the medicine. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” 

“I…I didn’t w-want-” he tried, but another coughing fit took over, and by the time he was done, the reservoir of the nebulizer was dry and his breathing wasn’t any better. 

“We’re going to the hospital,” Derek announced as he pulled out his cell phone and called for an ambulance, giving them the address and situation. “Is there anything else I can do while we wait?” he asked as he held the phone between his ear and shoulder so he could hold both of Stiles’ hands. 

“No,” Stiles mouthed as he shook his head, wheezing audible now that the nebulizer had been turned off, and Derek’s stomach dropped at the thought that maybe the paramedics wouldn’t make it in time. 

“Der?” he heard Stiles whisper breathlessly as he shifted slightly against his chest in the hospital room. “How’s Isaac?” he wheezed. 

“Shh,” Derek instructed softly. “You shouldn’t be talking.” 

“I just need to know,” Stiles wheezed. 

“He’s stable,” Derek assured him. “Just like he was ten minutes ago.” 

“Did the doctor…-”

“Nurse said she’d be in within the hour.” 

“He should be opening presents,” Stiles whispered. 

“I really don’t want to think about that right now,” Derek whispered back, taking a deep breath as he set his jaw and turned his head away from Stiles so that he could keep from crying. 

“He just never gets to be a kid, you know?” Stiles sniffled, fogging up the mask again. “Always going through so much. When we got him I…I wanted to make everything better.” 

“You’re going to make your lungs worse,” Derek warned softly. 

“I know. I just…want Isaac to be okay,” he wheezed. 

“I know, hon. Me too,” he sighed as he leaned his head against Stiles’. 

“D’you call my dad?” 

“On his way,” Derek said. “Now please, stop talking before Dr. Laska admits you, too?” 

Stiles nodded and let his eyelids fall despite the electricity moving through his body from the medicine. It didn’t matter that it had been months since he’d done a treatment; each time he tasted the albuterol on his lips it was like his childhood habits took over and every muscle in his body relaxed, oxygen finally able to move more freely into his lungs as he fell asleep. 

x

Isaac’s piercing cries carried down the long hallway, dragging Stiles from a deep and much needed sleep; it was Derek’s first business trip since Isaac had come into their lives and the toddler still wasn’t sleeping through the night even though he’d been in their care for over a month. “He’s gonna get me! Daddy! Papa!” he screeched. 

“Hey, Daddy’s here,” Stiles soothed as he pulled a hysterical Isaac from beneath his covers and into a tight hug before turning the bedside lamp on. “Shh, no one is coming to get you, baby boy.” 

“The bad guy’s hewe!” Isaac continued to bawl even after Stiles began rubbing gentle circles on his back and shushing him. “He’s gonna get you and Papa!” 

“There’s no one in the house but us, Isaac. Remember when we locked all of the doors downstairs before bedtime?” 

“But he’s gonna get us!” he whimpered, shaking in Stiles’ arms. 

“There’s no bad guy, Isaac. We’ve talked about this before with Dr. Galler. You’re safe now.” 

“I’m scawed,” he cried as he dug his little fingers into the fabric of Stiles’ grey t-shirt and tightened the grip of his legs around his waist. “I don’t want him to get me! Don’t let him get me!” 

Isaac suddenly gasped like he’d been holding his breath underwater, wheezing that trailed the following rapid breaths concerning Stiles. 

“Relax, Isaac,” he cooed. “You’re making yourself sick, honey.” 

“Don’t leave!” 

“I’m not going anywhere, I promise,” Stiles assured him. 

“Whewe’s Papa?” he wheezed, head turning left and right as he looked around the room for him. “Papa? Papa?!” 

“He’ll be home tomorrow, Isaac. We talked about that with Dr. Galler, too, remember?” 

“No.” Isaac shook his head, breathing still quick and uneven as he continued to cry and cling to Stiles. “Papa!” 

“Look who I found!” Stiles smiled sleepily as he picked up Balto, the small stuffed wolf that the toddler had grown quite attached to after he’d seen the cartoon movie. He made the grey stuffed animal kiss Isaac on the nose in an attempt to cheer him up, but instead it made him turn his head away and cry out for Papa again, which caused his dry cough to surface and knock whatever breath he had out of him. 

“No!” he whined when he saw Stiles pull the medicine from his nightstand, burying his face into Stiles’ shirt to avoid it. 

“It’ll make your coughing go away,” he explained softly as he shook the inhaler with his free hand and connected it to the spacer. 

“I don’t wike it,” he blubbered against Stiles’ chest. 

“I know, baby,” he sighed as he rubbed Isaac’s back, toddler continuing to cough heavily. “But if you take your inhaler we won’t have to do a treatment or go to the hospital.” 

“No!” 

“What if Daddy takes a puff, too?” he asked and Isaac finally lifted his head up, cries turning to sniffles as he debated the idea.

“You fiwst?” he asked, and Stiles nodded as he used one hand on the inhaler to press the mask on the end of the spacer against his face, taking a few big breaths once he let the medicine out of the canister. Stiles was used to modeling things for Isaac by now because the toddler was afraid of nearly everything, no doubt a result of his experiences in his last home. 

“Deep breath in,” Stiles smiled when Isaac took the first puff. “And out. In, out. Good job. One more,” he directed as he shook the inhaler and reconnected it, pressing down on the canister and repeating his directions before setting the contraption on the bed and adjusting Isaac so that he could rest in his arms. “I have such a brave little boy,” he soothed before kissing him on the forehead. 

“I feel icky,” he whimpered breathlessly. 

“I know, baby. It’ll start working soon.” 

“No more med’cine,” he cried, tears beginning to pool again. 

“No more for now,” Stiles assured Isaac as he began to weep, feeling guilty that the toddler was on so many medications. Their first doctors visit had revealed that his asthma was seriously out of control, prompting immediate preventative care that required breathing treatments three times a day, two different types of inhalers, and a slew of steroid, allergy, and epi-pen prescriptions. It didn’t help that more often than not the toddler could barely speak by the time he tried to alert Derek and Stiles to an attack, if he even tried at all. 

“Come stop your crying, it will be all right,” Stiles started to whisper-sing as he rose from the bed and rocked back and forth with Isaac against his chest. “Just take my hand, hold it tight. I will protect you from all around you. I will be here, don’t you cry.” 

Isaac’s breathing began to even out as they slowly circled the room. “For one so small, you seem so strong. My arms will hold you, keep you safe and warm,” he continued. “This bond between us can't be broken. I will be here, don't you cry.” 

He felt Isaac’s grip around his neck relax, the toddler’s sniffling turning into a yawn as he let his head rest on his father’s shoulder, eyes closing. “'Cause you'll be in my heart. Yes, you'll be in my heart from this day on now and forever more,” he finished, allowing the silence to soothe Isaac to sleep as he rocked him back and forth, own head falling sideways to be closer to his son’s. 


	8. Chapter 8

The wilting Christmas trees lining the curb on each end of Derek and Stiles’ street were a cruel reminder of the holiday that had come and gone as they’d sat in the dimly lit PICU of the Beacon Hills Hospital waiting, hoping, and wishing for any sign of improvement in Isaac’s condition. His fever had broken on the third day, oxygen levels coming up considerably and staying stable on the fourth. He’d fallen asleep in his car seat moments after all of the buckles had been secured on day five when he was released, blonde curls matted from nearly a week spent against a pillow. 

Now Derek adjusted a sleepy Isaac on his hip as Stiles unlocked the front door, exhaustion making everything in front of him blurry; he’d gotten about six hours of sleep total, and most, if not all of them, were with one eye open. 

“I’ll head over to CVS for his prescriptions in a little while,” Stiles sighed as he tossed his keys into their dish and pulled his jacket off. 

“I’m gonna get this one into bed,” Derek said softly as he nodded towards the stairwell. 

“Twee,” Isaac said, more awake than he’d been in a while, voice breathy and light. 

“You wanna see the tree, honey?” Stiles asked, perking up slightly as he brushed his fingers through the toddler’s hair. 

“Did Santa come?” he asked, voice barely a whisper. 

“Let’s go check,” Stiles said as he detoured the three of them into the living room by pulling on the sleeve of Derek’s leather jacket, lips curved into a smile that was so contagious even Derek couldn’t resist. The three of them stood in the middle of the room as they took in the sight of rainbow tree lights casting themselves against the pale sage walls and presents neatly arranged beneath the tree by Stiles’ father. 

“He came!” Isaac smiled happily, voice raspy as he laid his head on Derek’s shoulder. Stiles smiled too, joy in his heart at the happiness in Isaac’s eyes enough to make him feel somewhat okay for the first time in a week. 

x

"Santa doesn’t know…whewe I am," Isaac had cried, the toddler’s little chest heaving with effort to get the words out as he lay in the hospital bed. Stiles had finally managed to peel himself off of Derek to let him tell the doctors of their decision about the ventilator and the absence of his husband beside him made the room feel cold. 

"Yes, he does,” Stiles assured him as he rubbed Isaac’s cheek, tears rolling down his own despite the smile on his face. “Santa knows everything, baby boy.” 

“And Gampa’s gonna be…aw awone!” Isaac started to sob, sending him into a miserable coughing fit, his monitor suddenly full of activity. The sadness in his voice made Stiles’ heart want to break; they’d been talking about the holidays for nearly two months, how everyone special to them would be coming together as a family, a concept that Isaac was slowly but surely beginning to understand. 

“Shh. Gampa can come to us, honey,” Stiles soothed as he took Isaac’s hand in his and squeezed it gently. 

“He’s gonna…be mad!” Isaac continued to cry. 

“Gampa would never be mad at you for being sick, Isaac.” 

“I wanna…go home,” he wheezed, tears still falling as he gasped. 

“I know, honey. I promise we’ll go home once they make your breathing all better, okay?” 

“Whewe’s Papa?” 

“He’ll be right back. Just get some rest, baby,” Stiles choked out as he tried to soothe the toddler by tucking him in beneath his favorite blue fleece blanket. Once Isaac’s sniffling had died down and his eyes had fluttered closed in exhaustion, Stiles let his right palm push against his forehead as a silent sob came out, own wheezing starting up again as he thought about how watching Isaac struggle to breathe and understand what was going on was worse than any pain he’d felt before. 

He’d wanted to wake up early and get pancakes and coffee going, to hear Isaac yell excitedly as he hopped down the stairs, eyes wide and happy as he began to take in the tree all lit and surrounded by presents. It was something he’d never had before and Stiles had wanted to create it for him, give him the experiences from his own childhood that he cherished greatly. That was all but a dream; Stiles could hear the toddler fight for air even as he slept, and it made his own wheezing deepen, right hand flat against his chest as he tried unsuccessfully to take a deep breath. 

“Stiles,” Derek whispered, feet hurrying across the tile when he found his husband sobbing and panting at Isaac’s bedside. His extended his arms and pulled Stiles in close. “It’s okay. I’m here.” 

“I can’t do this,” Stiles whispered back as he tried to catch his breath. 

“Yes, you can. I’m going to help you. We’re in this together, babe. For Isaac.” 

“N-no,” Stiles said as he shook his head, unsure of what he was even saying ‘no’ to. His emotions had balled up in his stomach and his lungs were seizing as he tried to think about the heartbreak the next few days could bring. 

“You have to breathe, honey,” he coaxed as he rubbed Stiles’ back, voice breaking as he said the word breathe. “Please. I need you just as much as you need me right now.” Stiles felt a tear fall on his forehead and looked up, his husband’s glossy, pleading eyes meeting his own. “I’m so scared to lose him,” Derek admitted softly. 

“Me too,” Stiles whispered as he buried his face in Derek’s shirt. They stood there in the room for a few minutes just rocking in each other’s arms, silent tears falling as Stiles’ breathing started to even out. 

“So give me hope in the darkness, that I will see the light,” Derek sang as he started one of their favorite songs from their wedding, voice as low as a whisper as he kept his arms tight around Stiles. “Cause oh they gave me such a fright. But I will hold as long as you like.” 

“Just promise me we'll be alright,” Stiles finished, thankful that Derek, always strong and persistent in his ways, was going to help guide him through this, whatever this was going to become. 

x

“You wanna open a few presents?” Stiles gently kissed Isaac’s forehead, letting his lips linger a moment longer than necessary because he was so glad to finally be hone with his family. The toddler nodded and yawned, still leaning his head against Derek’s shoulder as he let Stiles pick a small box for him from beneath the tree. 

“He looks about ready to pass out again,” Derek sighed as he helped Isaac sit up in his lap on the couch, muscles still weak from not being mobile for a few days. 

“I know, but I think a few presents will cheer him up,” Stiles smiled as he placed the gift in Isaac’s hands. The toddler’s fingers pulled at the paper, but the bandage on his hand where the IV had been placed made it difficult and his arms gave up quickly. Stiles took over, opening the gift enough for Isaac to pull out a small black Hot Wheels Chevy Camaro. Stiles opened pulled the cardboard packaging apart and handed the car to the toddler. 

“It’s just wike Papa’s!” he laughed as he examined it, which caused a spurt of deep, chesty coughs to start. Derek rubbed his back while Stiles watched worriedly, the congestion a reminder that the battle against the pneumonia still wasn’t over no matter how much they wished that it were. Isaac whimpered miserably once he was finished and balled up against Derek’s chest, slowly regaining his breath as he relaxed. 

“We need to get his prescriptions before the pharmacy closes,” Derek said dryly as he stood and adjusted Isaac on his hip, mood suddenly shifted. 

“I’m fully aware of that,” Stiles said as he rose, annoyed with the frown on Derek’s face. 

“He should have been in bed ten minutes ago,” Derek explained as he started for the stairs, Isaac already half asleep with the car clutched in his hand, arm looped around his papa’s neck. 

“What’s with the sudden attitude?” Stiles asked. 

“In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t really slept,” Derek spat angrily as he trudged up the stairs. 

“I haven’t slept either, Derek,” Stiles responded as he followed. 

Derek stopped mid-way up and turned to ask, “Are you getting his prescriptions or not?” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Because I want to take a nap, so if you’re not going to go, I need to run out beforehand.”

“The pharmacy doesn’t close for another five hours,” Stiles said, confused as to why Derek was suddenly so irritated. “Can’t we just enjoy being-”

“He’s due for a treatment in a half hour and we don’t have the right strength of albuterol.” 

“Are you seriously doing this right now?” Stiles argued, wishing that they could go back two minutes in time and he could see that wide smile on Isaac’s face as he held his first Christmas present in his hands. 

“Do you want him to be back in the hospital in two days’ time, or do you want to spend the rest of your winter break home?” 

“I just wanted five minutes with my family,” Stiles said, obviously heated as he grabbed his keys and pulled his jacket from the closet. “I fucking hate it when you get like this,” he panted as he opened the front door, pausing with the knob in his hand as the cool air rushed in. “Because I’m angry too, you know. That Isaac’s sick. That this last week was fucking hard. I wish that things had been different, too, but I’m not taking it out on the people that I love.” And with that Stiles slammed the door shut, jacket draped over his arm, and went to start the car. 


	9. Chapter 9

“Derek’s scared, Stiles,” his father told him through his Bluetooth, fingers gripping the steering wheel as he headed home from the pharmacy. 

“Scared of what, Dad? Isaac’s home now.” 

“He’s still adjusting to being a dad. Give him some time,” he said. 

“This is all new to me too and I’m not acting like a lunatic!” Stiles exclaimed. 

“The adoption part, yes. But not the asthma.” 

And suddenly Stiles understood what was eating away at their relationship, could see the instances that had occurred in the past four months where his father’s words were blatantly obvious, their first visit to the pediatrician the most vivid in his mind. 

“You and Mom learned how to handle it, though,” Stiles said, voice slightly whiny. 

“Yeah, and we were petrified when you were diagnosed. We used to take turns checking on you in the middle of the night because we were afraid you’d stop breathing or have such a bad attack that your wheezing would disappear before we could hear it.” 

“Really?” Stiles asked, surprised. 

“You’re in control of your asthma because you’re an adult, and you’re good at controlling Isaac’s asthma because you know what symptoms to pick up on. But being the parent of a child with asthma when you don’t have it yourself can be terrifying because it feels like one giant guessing game. That’s why Derek’s a nervous wreck when it comes to Isaac’s breathing,” his father explained. “I know it tears you up to watch him struggle, but I’m betting Derek feels even more hopeless, guilty even, because he always feels like he couldn’t see it coming when he should have.” 

Stiles just took a deep breath and focused on the road, unsure of what to say in response. 

“And don’t even get me started on the peanut thing,” his father groaned, trying to make the conversation light again. “I can’t keep a damn jar in the house because he always finds it and replaces it with soy butter or whatever that crap is.” 

Stiles laughed softly and took another deep breath. “I think the last week has been really hard on him.” 

“Well, it doesn’t help that you kept your asthma from him and then proceeded to have one of your worst attacks,” the Sheriff said. 

“Yeah, wasn’t using my best judgment there,” Stiles sighed. 

“He was scared then, that night when you were at the hospital, and he’s scared now. Because he’s gotta worry about it happening to not only you, but Isaac, too.” 

“Fuck,” Stiles said in realization, the curse low enough that he wondered if his father had heard it through the phone. 

“You created your own monster, kiddo,” he sighed. 

“Yeah, so now what do I do?” 

“You fix it.” 

“Easier said than done,” Stiles griped. “Thanks, though. I really appreciate it.” 

“Yup,” was all his father said before he disconnected the call. 

“Why couldn’t I see it?” Stiles whispered to himself, the sudden silence making his mind race. He hadn’t had any Adderall in a few days and it was really starting to affect him, so he pushed play and hoped that whatever CD was in the player wasn’t Derek’s Avenged Sevenfold or Isaac’s Raffi. Thankfully, it was the Mumford and Sons that he liked to listen to on his drive home from work, the soothing sounds helping him even out his breathing as his fingers tapped nervously on the steering wheel. 

“How am I going to fix this?” he asked himself out loud, head pushing back into the headrest, memories of their first doctor’s visit playing over in his head as he made the right turn to enter the windy road up to Griffith Park, promising himself just five minutes of peace before he walked back into the house that hadn’t felt like a home in two weeks. 

x

Isaac sat in Stiles’ lap on the exam table during their first doctors visit, shirt off as the nurse had advised them. He ran the yellow wooden car in his hands back and forth along the paper and against Stiles’ leg, giggling softly between vrooming noises. A bout of dry coughing would surface here and there, the toddler continuing to play even though it was obvious he was struggling in the way the muscles of his upper body worked hard to regulate his breathing once the fit was over. The rasp in his voice overshadowed the low dialogue he was having with himself, wheeze present each time he tried to take a deep breath. 

There was a knock. “I’m Dr. Marmon,” a woman smiled as she entered and closed the door behind her, hand extending to Stiles and then Derek as they introduced themselves. “And you must be Isaac!” 

The toddler’s eyes tracked the doctor in the white coat nervously as she moved to wash her hands in the sink, wheezing picking up as he whimpered and clung to Stiles. He held the car tightly in his fist and against his chest, afraid that she might take it away. 

“She isn’t going to hurt you, Isaac. She’s just going to listen to your heart and breathing and make sure you’re healthy. And I’m going to be right here holding you, okay?” The toddler shook his head ‘no’ and coughed into Stiles’ chest, anxiety obvious in the way he had curled his body into a little ball. 

“Sounds like the little guy has a bit of asthma,” she noted as she dried her hands with a paper towel. 

“We were given an inhaler, but it’s almost out and it doesn’t really help much,” Derek explained. 

“I’m just going to take a listen,” Dr. Marmon smiled as she put the buds from her stethoscope in her ears and approached Isaac, who flinched and scrambled to get off of his dad’s lap. Stiles’ hands grabbed hold of him quickly and just enough to keep him from falling. 

“No,” Isaac whined, whimpers and wheezing growing worse as he fought Stiles’ grip, car still tight beneath his fingers. 

“She’s not going to hurt you,” Stiles cooed as he adjusted Isaac in his lap. “She just wants to listen.” 

“No!” 

Derek held back as he watched Stiles struggle to keep Isaac in his lap, feeling powerless yet again; the toddler always seemed to be in fight or flight mode, sudden movements and strange people guaranteed to cause panic, and nearly everything Derek said or did to help was useless. Though they’d only had Isaac for four days, it was obvious that he was more attached to Stiles, and Derek wished he had that special touch that seemed to come so naturally to his husband. 

“Isaac, honey, calm down,” Stiles tried to soothe, but it was obvious that he was growing impatient, and his hold on the toddler increased. Suddenly, Isaac’s wheezing became fast and high pitched, body stiffening in Stiles’ arms as the car fell from his fingers and on to the floor. Eyes wide, he looked to Stiles for relief as he struggled for breath. 

“H-he had an episode like this last night,” Derek stammered worriedly as the doctor quickly set a nebulizer next to Stiles and prepped the machine. 

“I ended up giving him a treatment with my nebulizer,” Stiles admitted as he took the mask from the doctor and waited for her to turn the machine on. “Helped enough to give him four hours of sleep. That’s the most he’s slept consecutively since we brought him home.” 

Tears streamed down Isaac’s red cheeks as Stiles held the misting mask lightly over his tiny face, strap unsecured so that it couldn’t throw him into another level of hysterics. “It’s okay, Isaac. You’re okay. Daddy and Papa are here,” Stiles cooed as he cradled the toddler in his arms, chest rising and falling rapidly as he inhaled the medication. 

“It might make it easier if you show him what you’re going to do using me first,” Derek proposed as he remembered a strategy that the child psychologist had suggested, the doctor nodding and putting the stethoscope to his chest before asking him to take a deep breath. Isaac watched Derek intently as he breathed from the mask, Stiles taking the opportunity to secure the strap since he was distracted. 

“See? That’s all she’s going to do,” Stiles explained, voice soft as he positioned Isaac so that the doctor could take a listen. The toddler moved close against Stiles’ chest, fingers twisting the fabric of his t-shirt. 

“No!” he cried, whimpers muffled by the mask. “No!” 

“Shh,” Stiles soothed, kissing the toddler’s head as the doctor successfully lay the disc of the stethoscope against his bare back. “You’re okay,” he coached each time Isaac flinched as she lifted and placed it. “See? It doesn’t hurt.” 

“How often were you giving the albuterol?” she asked as she continued to listen to Isaac’s breathing. 

“Every six hours or so,” Derek said. 

“When was his last dose?” 

“Around eight this morning.” 

“I’m surprised that he’s still so wheezy despite the inhaler and treatment,” she concluded as she put the stethoscope back around her neck. “He doesn’t sound congested, but I’m going to check his oxygen level just to see where he’s at.” 

“Is he having an attack?” Derek asked, nervous. 

“It’s not so much an attack as poorly controlled asthma,” she explained as she clipped a pulse oximeter to one of Isaac’s index fingers. “The reports that you had faxed over indicated that the frequency of his attacks were the reason CPS got involved. It’s hard to tell since his lungs are so sensitive right now, but I have a feeling he has a pretty severe case of asthma to begin with.” 

Isaac fought to keep his eyes open, eyelids finally falling in defeat as the pulse oximeter beeped alongside his heartbeat, panic, flare, and medicine having worn him out. Stiles felt the toddler’s muscles relax as the medicine moved deeper into his lungs and adjusted him so that he could be comfortable. Derek picked the wooden car up from the floor and held it in his hands, eyes fixed on it as he took a deep breath to try and calm his anxiety. 

“That’s definitely not good,” Stiles whispered when he saw a digital 94 appear on the screen of the handheld device. 

“What would be a good number?” Derek asked as he looked from Stiles to the doctor, confused. 

“100,” Stiles and the doctor said simultaneously. 

Derek swallowed and took a deep breath as he fiddled with the car in his hands. “How do we get it up to 100, then?” 

“You’re looking at it,” Stiles said softly as his eyes fell upon Isaac cradled in his arms, mist around the mask clouding his face. 

“Once the medicine opens him up we should see the number climb,” Dr. Marmon explained. “His normal might be a little lower than 100, though. We’ll know in a few weeks once the medications really start to take effect.” Derek nodded at the information, feeling like the room was closing in on him, the sound of his heart beating in his ears alerting him to the fast, low beeping on the pulse oximeter beside Stiles on the exam table. 

“Should his heart be beating this fast?” Derek asked nervously as he watched the little lines rise and fall in time with Isaac’s rapid heartbeat on the small screen. 

“It’s just the albuterol. His heart rate will go back down soon,” the doctor assured him. 

“A-and the shaking. Is that normal? He was doing that last night, too, after we used the nebulizer.” 

“It’s just a side effect. That will go away once the medication wears off,” she said as she began to flip through the paperwork in Isaac’s file on the counter. 

“Calm down, Derek,” Stiles whispered once the doctor had turned away. 

Derek didn’t say anything as he lifted one hand from the car and pushed his fingers through the toddler’s little blonde curls, touch light enough that Isaac didn’t even stir. At least you understand everything that’s going on right now, Derek wanted to say in his usual manner, but he held his tongue and concentrated on breathing slow and even to keep himself together. 

“He’s going to be fine, Der. We just need to get him on the right meds.” 

Derek sighed, afraid to admit that he was overwhelmed; watching his son fight against the doctor and breathe from a mask made his heart ache in a way it never had before. 

“Isaac’s up to date on his shots and his blood work from the hospital a month ago looks great,” Dr. Marmon smiled. “He’s a bit small for his age, but according to the hospital records he was born prematurely. They did a skin test for allergies about six months ago and he was positive for mold, pollen, and a few types of grasses. Fall can be a particularly hard time for people with allergies and asthma, so that might be part of what’s going on right now.” 

“The case worker said he had a peanut allergy,” Derek remembered suddenly, thumb turning one of the wheels on the car over as his anxiety continued to grow. “We’ve been avoiding peanut butter but I was reading some stuff online and I’m a little worried.” 

“I have that in my file as well. I’ll write you a prescription for an epi-pen and teach you how to administer it before you leave. I have a link to a great website that can tell you everything you need to know,” she smiled as she began to fill in pages of her prescription pad. 

Derek hated that she was smiling so much; he knew that it was probably to help keep the patients and parents calm, but instead it filled him with anger. She wasn’t the one who would be coaxing Isaac into sitting still for a breathing treatment like they’d had to the night before while he kicked and fought and fear coursed through his tiny body. She wasn’t the one who would be reading label after label in the grocery store to make sure the cookies he was about to eat with his lunch weren’t made in a plant that processed peanuts, something Derek had only known because he’d been up all night after Isaac’s terrifying episode the night before and started doing research using what they’d been told by Social Services. 

“Der,” Stiles whispered as he watched the way his husband’s eyebrows were arched together in concern, lips a straight line as his eyes focused intently on Isaac. 

“Don’t,” he whispered as he looked away, one sniffle enough to dissolve the tears that had started to fill his eyes. Derek barely listened as the doctor showed them how to give the epi-pen, eyes following her hands in a daze as she used a demo on Stiles’ leg. There was so much information, so much that he didn’t know, and it was all coming at him so fast. 

“I wrote the link to the website on the yellow post-it,” she said, pulling Derek from his fog as she handed him a stack of prescriptions. 

“This is a lot of medication,” Derek said as he paged through them. Words like Ventolin, Flovent, and prednisone jumped off of the first three pages, his ability to read messy handwriting not helping the uneasiness sitting in his stomach at the moment. 

“Once we get his asthma under control we can wean him off some preventers and the steroids,” she explained. Steroids? Derek thought, tears pricking his eyes; he remembered Stiles mentioning something about the probability of the doctor placing Isaac on them in the car, that they were different, somehow, than the ones he’d always read about in the news, but that the side effects could be less than desirable. 

“Right now his airways are constricted and inflamed, which is why he’s wheezing so much. To be honest, I’m almost ready to admit him based on his oxygen level, but everything is new to him right now and he was having such a hard time handling my office that I think the best thing would be for you to take him home and let him rest. Start the breathing treatments and keep them up, get him familiar with the inhalers and spacers. If it really seems like he’s struggling to breathe, you can take him to urgent care or the emergency room and have them page me.” 

By then the nebulizer was dry and Isaac had woken up enough for Stiles to help him shimmy his shirt back on, so they were given the go-ahead to leave. The toddler shook in his father’s arms from the medicine as they exited the office, his breathy whimpers a sign that he was feeling absolutely awful. 

“Can you grab his juice cup?” Stiles asked Derek as he shifted Isaac so that he could rest his head on his shoulder. “The albuterol probably made his mouth dry.” 

Derek pulled the juice from the bag around his shoulder and wordlessly handed Isaac his Batman cup, the child sipping franticly as he snuggled against Stiles on their way to the parking garage. He had to look away to keep the jealousy at bay, which made Derek feel even guiltier; he hated that Stiles had known that Isaac’s mouth would be dry because of the medicine, that his whimpers had signaled that he wanted something to drink. And the way he was curled in Stiles’ arms made him wish the toddler would do that in his own, the comfort that would appear in his blue eyes always making him feel more distanced, somehow. 

Out of fear he watched Isaac’s sleeping reflection from the rearview mirror on the ride home, fist clenching in nervousness with each of the toddler’s mid-slumber coughs. 

“He’s fine,” Stiles stated when he caught Derek’s eyes in the mirror and realized what his husband was doing. 

“I was just making sure,” Derek grumbled as he tore his gaze away from Isaac and looked out the window instead. 

“He’s going to be okay-” Stiles started. 

“With the right meds, I know,” Derek whined. 

“You’re still freaking out.” 

“Of course I’m freaking out!” Derek’s voice rose, Stiles’ accusation lighting the match. “Our son just had an asthma attack and he’s being put on more medication than I’ve ever been on in my entire life and I can’t understand how none of this seems to bother you!” 

“It does bother me!” Stiles yelled, then realized that he needed to lower his voice when he saw Isaac move in the rearview mirror. “Look, we went into this knowing our child was going to have a chronic illness. We can manage this. He just needs to do his treatments and inhalers and hopefully one day he won’t even need daily medication at all.” 

“He can barely climb the stairs without taking a break, and when he gets to the top he’s wheezing and coughing. Hell, by the time he knows it’s happening he can’t even speak!” 

“That’s only because he hasn’t been on preventers, Derek. We need to help him understand his triggers and symptoms,” Stiles said. “Help him figure out when he needs to slow down.” 

“What, so he can be the kid sitting on the sidelines all of his life?” Derek asked. 

“I have asthma and I wasn’t sitting on the sidelines,” Stiles reasoned, eyes focused on the road. 

“You were second string for lacrosse until your junior year of high school,” Derek pointed out. 

“Yeah, but that was because I sucked at lacrosse, not because of my asthma.” 

“You heard what Dr. Marmon said, about how his case is probably severe.” 

“What she said was that we won’t know for a few weeks. And even if it is, we’ll be okay,” Stiles assured him as he glanced in the rearview mirror to see Isaac watching the two of them argue, tears and hiccupy breathing starting due to the tone of their conversation. 

“But what if we’re not okay, Stiles? Hmm?” Derek asked as his anger flared, unaware of that fact that Isaac was awake and about to have a fit in the back seat. “What if the wheezing stays and his oxygen levels don’t come up and he continues to have attacks in the middle of the night?” 

“Seriously, Derek, you need to calm down or you’re going to make him have another attack,” Stiles warned as he stopped at a red light and unwrapped the lollipop they’d gotten at the doctor’s to calm Isaac down. 

The thought of sending his son into an episode was enough to quiet Derek and keep him from bringing the topic up again. Because he knew that his view on situation, that his overbearing tone would only make things worse for this new family that he so desperately wanted to work. So he bit his lip and watched Isaac sniffle and lick his orange lolly from the side mirror, fingers crossed the entire ride to the pharmacy that things would get just a little bit easier for them all. 


	10. Chapter 10

Stiles returned to find Isaac in Derek’s arms and both of them half-asleep in bed, Isaac bathed and wearing Stiles’ old grey Beacon Hills lacrosse t-shirt, sleeves reaching the toddler’s wrists and hem falling to his ankles. Stiles smiled at the thought as he walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. 

“I couldn’t get him to wear anything else,” Derek explained tiredly, Stiles just noticing how bloodshot his husband’s eyes were from stress and lack of sleep. 

“Why don’t you get to bed? I can do Isaac’s meds,” Stiles offered as he began to take items out of the paper pharmacy bag. 

“It’s okay, I can sit with him,” Derek said as he shifted Isaac and sat up, yawn escaping.

“You’re exhausted. Take a hot shower and get some sleep.” 

“You’re tired, too.” 

“I can go another hour or so. It’s fine,” Stiles assured him as he lifted Isaac and grabbed a packet of medication so that they could do his treatment in the rocking chair. Derek rose slowly from the bed and let out a muffled thanks as he shuffled out of the room. 

“Snowmans!” Isaac smiled sleepily as he shoved _Snowmen at Night_ from the book basket in Stiles’ face, which he promptly slid between the arm rest and padding so that he could maneuver Isaac and himself into the chair. 

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you before,” Derek admitted as he paused in the doorway, back to Stiles while he prepped Isaac’s nebulizer. “I wanted to enjoy some family time, too.” 

“It’s okay. I get it,” Stiles sighed, unsure if he was ready for this conversation. He could sense that Derek hadn’t moved but continued to get Isaac’s treatment started anyway. 

“I just thought that we were doing so well, you know?” Derek asked, voice low. “He hadn’t had an attack in a good three weeks and he was barely wheezing and we’d gotten him off of the steroids.” 

“Der,” Stiles sighed. “It’s okay. We’re getting back on track,” Stiles assured him as he pulled the book out to keep Isaac occupied and turned the machine on. 

“I should have been home.” 

“Look, I know that I’ve been really hard on you recently about being on top of Isaac’s asthma and allergies but this isn’t your fault. He probably just caught a cold from one of the kids at school and-”

“I can be a better father. A better husband.” 

“You’re a great father and husband, Derek. Nothing that you did caused this.” 

“But it’s not just this time, Stiles,” Derek sighed before he disappeared from the doorway. 

x

“You let him play in the leaves?!” Stiles had asked through his Bluetooth as he rushed home from work the first Thursday of November, eyes scanning the rearview and side mirrors to see if it was safe to change lanes. 

“I didn’t think it would be a big deal,” Derek explained as he held a wheezing and whimpering Isaac in his lap. 

“Leaves are _full_ of mold and pollen, not to mention ticks. Oh, God. Did you check him-”

“I’m trying to get his nebulizer together. Just…just give me a second, okay? One thing at a time,” Derek sighed, overwhelming guilt weighing down on his shoulders. He didn’t want to admit that he was having trouble remembering how to put the medicine into the reservoir because Stiles was usually the one to do it, so he used the directions on the box of albuterol sulfate to aid him until he finally got all of the pieces in place and turned the machine on. 

“How bad is he?” Stiles finally asked, allowing himself to calm down a little once he heard the buzzing of the nebulizer. 

“He _asked_ me for a treatment.” 

Stiles exhaled heavily. “I’ll be home in two.” 

x

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking,” Derek had said as he pushed a hand through his hair and sighed. Stiles held Isaac in his lap while he finished his treatment, the toddler feeling well enough again to play happily with his father’s purple tie. 

“Yeah, just like you weren’t thinking when you gave him a Capri Sun with strawberries in it,” Stiles said, words hitting Derek right in the heart. 

“That was an accident, Stiles! The names on the boxes are similar and I grabbed the wrong one,” he defended, tears filling his eyes as he thought about how he’d never confuse Splash Cooler for Pacific Cooler ever again. 

“We can’t afford to have accidents, Derek!” he yelled. “Especially when his peak flow is in the yellow zone. Did you not read the note I left on the kitchen counter? It said ‘no playing outside today’.” 

“When I read it I thought that you meant ‘no running’,” Derek argued. 

“You could have called me,” Stiles said as he switched the machine off and removed the mask from Isaac’s face. 

“I did call you!” 

“Yeah, _panicking_. By then it was a little late, Derek.” 

“I said that I was sorry.” 

“Isaac’s the one you should be apologizing to, not me,” Stiles said as he lifted the toddler from the bed and exited the room to give him a bath. 

Derek leaned over the master bedroom’s bathroom sink less than a minute later, elbows locked as he tried to slow his breathing down. He looked at himself in the mirror for a moment before the shame took over and forced him to drop his head. It didn’t matter how many late night hours he secretly spent pouring over forums full of parents of children with food allergies or articles titled “Managing Your Child’s Asthma”; he was the reason Isaac had gone into anaphylactic shock three weeks ago and the cause of his attack that day. 

“I can be better,” he whispered to himself, his heart aching so much that the feeling radiated throughout his entire chest. It was like he couldn’t breathe and it made him wonder if this, on a larger scale, was what Isaac felt like everyday. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Major thanks to my beta-reader Casey and to all of you for sticking with me until chapter 11! There’s lots more to come, so if you follow me or this story you will be getting updates soon! Don't forget to review!

“Isaac, Daddy’s here,” his teacher, Miss Joyce, announced happily as Stiles stood in the doorway. The two adults watched as the toddler slowly dragged his schoolbag across the floor from the colorful carpet where the rest of his classmates sat, eyes cast downward as he walked. 

“Hey, bud,” Stiles smiled as he squatted down and took the corner of Isaac’s project in his hand. “Did you make this today?” 

Isaac quickly pulled the paper from Stiles’ grip, forcing it to rip right down the center, leaving each of them with one jagged half. 

“Isaac, honey,” he tried, body moving to pull his son close, but the toddler flinched and backed away, wrapping his arms tightly around his stomach over what was left of the project. Stiles took a deep breath and held back when he realized Isaac was having one of his days, the ones the child psychologist had said would crop up on occasion, often without any warning. The steroids he’d been taking since he’d come home from the hospital a little over a week ago definitely weren’t helping the situation, either. 

He could feel the teacher and parents behind him watching, judging his ability to handle the situation, and suddenly Stiles felt ill-equipped to even get his son to the car. Because when Isaac slipped into one of his “moods”, something as small as getting him to hold hands crossing the street could become a vicious battle. 

“He didn’t really say much today,” the teacher said as she pulled Stiles aside to talk and let the assistant start releasing the other children. He sighed as he glanced at the shredded construction paper in his hand, unable to keep himself from thinking that maybe everything that they’d worked so hard as a family to get past with Isaac was now working against them. “Wouldn’t participate, didn’t want to play with anyone. He had a bit of a meltdown in music and I had to take him into the hallway to calm him down.” 

Stiles was a teacher; he knew where the conversation was going. _I know that’s not typical behavior for Isaac, so I’m a little concerned_ , was going through his head seconds before she said something similar. He nodded, unable to say anything as he focused on his son who was standing in the middle of the room hugging himself, lips pursed together like he was working his hardest to keep himself from falling apart. 

And then the teacher asked, in a whisper, “Is everything okay?” and Stiles just pulled his lips in and let his head fall. Because things were definitely not okay. Not at home, not at work, not with anything. He turned his head away to keep himself from crying, because who cries when they go to pick their child up from preschool? 

“His asthma meds make him really moody sometimes,” Stiles found himself saying, voice low and dry, but he knew it was more than that and he could sense that the teacher did, too. She nodded and Stiles was thankful she could read subtext. 

“He’s, uh, been on a lot of medication since the pneumonia,” Stiles continued, voice breaking as he added, “and he’s kind of been all over the place because some of the treatments make him hyper and others make him drowsy or hungry or upset. I’m so sorry about his behavior today. We have an appointment with the psychologist coming up and I’ll talk to Isaac about-”

She put her hand up to stop him and gave the most understanding smile Stiles had ever seen. “I’m not trying to make you feel judged, Mr. Stilinski. I know that your family has been through a lot in the past few months and I just wanted to touch base with you about Isaac. From what I’ve been observing, today was just an off day and I wouldn’t worry too much about it, okay?” 

Stiles nodded and thanked her before kneeling beside Isaac to attempt to coax him out of the classroom and into the hallway that he knew was full of people and strollers and noise that threatened to make just the trip out of the school a nightmare. 

x 

“We have to hold hands in the parking lot,” Stiles told Isaac for a third time as they stood at the edge of the curb just outside of the school’s entrance ten minutes later, patience fading as the toddler continued to hug himself tightly with no sign of budging any time soon. 

That’s when he finally lost it by grabbing his son’s arm tightly and dragging him against his will to the car. “You need to start listening to me when I tell you to do something,” came out between gritted teeth, and Stiles hated himself for each and every word. But the anger just kept growing inside of him and he couldn’t get himself to stop, even as Isaac sobbed when Stiles forced him into his car seat and buckled him in because the toddler was too hysterical to do it himself. 

Isaac fought the straps by swinging his arms and kicking his legs, but Stiles was quick and had the toddler situated before the tantrum could really begin. He knew he’d scared him; he’d heard that scream before, the one that came from a place so deep within Isaac that Stiles couldn’t stop himself from imagining the terrors he’d read about on the initial CPS reports. 

Stiles let his tongue run over his teeth as he drove home, cloudy eyes refusing to look in the rearview mirror as Isaac cried himself into a coughing fit. 

“It’s not personal,” the child psychologist, Dr. Galler, had said during their second visit in September as Isaac sorted shapes on the carpet behind him and Derek. “His outbursts, those moments when he holds his arms up in defense or pulls away and wraps his arms around his stomach and sobs, are not a reflection of your parenting. They’re his conditioned responses to stimuli that shouldn’t make him feel uncomfortable but do.” 

“It’s important to realize that his hierarchy of needs is slowly mending itself. Right now he’s relearning some of the most basic things,” Dr. Galler said in reference to Isaac’s behavior. “Like the inner-workings of trust and how people express love. It’s going to take some time to get him where he’s not so concerned with security and he can move on towards feeling like he belongs.” 

It had taken them months to figure out how to handle and prevent Isaac’s panic-stricken reactions each and every time something moved too quickly in his frame of vision or when he felt someone invading the two foot invisible box he’d created around himself. He hadn’t wrapped his arms around himself since the beginning of December and the sight of Isaac looking so helpless worried him. 

“I know it’s still early and all, but Isaac’s meltdowns are happening more frequently and it seems like they’re getting more extreme,” Stiles had said in late-October when he feared that they would continue to get worse and would reach a point where they wouldn’t be able to handle them. 

“Can you give me a recent example?” Dr. Galler had asked. 

“Well, we went to Target last Saturday and he kept trying to climb out of the seat on the cart. He was crying and carrying on so I thought maybe he was uncomfortable,” Stiles said. “It wasn’t until I pulled him out and tried to comfort him that I realized he was overwhelmed by the noise and activity in the store. He was covering both of his ears and then he started screaming and kicking his legs and I could barely hold him. What made it worse was that I could tell by the way people were staring that they were thinking we must have smacked him or something to make him so upset.” 

“We get a lot of looks when we go out, being two dads and all, but this was different,” Derek sighed. 

“He just has these moments where he can’t handle overstimulation or let the fear building up inside of him go,” Stiles said. “We try to comfort him but he doesn’t want to be touched so he immediately runs for his ‘safe spot’ under the dining room table. He also hides there when he’s having trouble breathing and doesn’t want to tell us because he thinks he’ll get in trouble.” Stiles shook his head and looked down in defeat. “It’s like we try to do all of the comforting in the world and most of the time it’s just not enough to let him know we’re there for him.” 

“It makes me wonder if anything we do will ever be enough, you know?” Derek mumbled softly. 

“Now might be a good time for me to mention that Isaac was beaming when he told me about how he bravely handled his strawberry incident last week,” Dr. Galler said with a small smile as she pulled her recorder out. “I thought that it might help for you to hear some of what Isaac says during our time together to keep you from getting so discouraged. Are you two comfortable with that?” 

Stiles and Derek looked at each other for a moment before nodding. 

“I can’t eat stwawberries anymowe,” Isaac’s voice rose from the recorder, clinking of wooden blocks audible in the background. 

“Why not?” Dr. Galler asked. 

“They made me weally sick.” 

“What happened when you had strawberries, Isaac?” 

“My froat tickled,” he explained. “And I got a attack so I had to go to the hosital.” 

“Oh, no! That must have been scary!” 

“Mhmm.” 

“What did you do when your throat started to tickle?” 

“I wanted to go to my safe spot ‘cause I didn’t want to be in twouble.” 

“Did you go under the table?” 

“No. I told Daddy that my froat tickled ‘cause him and Papa always say I need to tell them when I fhink I need my med’cine.” 

“What happened after you told them about your throat tickle?” 

“I had to get a special shot that huwt weally bad but Daddy and Papa gave me lots of cuddles and kisses ‘cause they was weally happy that I told them.” 

“What a brave little boy, Isaac,” Dr. Galler said. “You must be very proud of yourself for telling Daddy and Papa even though you were so scared.” 

“Mhmm!” 

“You said that you didn’t want to tell them at first. Why not?” 

“’Cause sometimes they fight when I’m sick.” 

“So you thought that they’d be mad at you?” 

“Yeah, but they didn’t have a fight ‘nd even though Daddy was cwying he held my hand in the wambulance.” 

“What do you think you’ll do the next time you have an attack, Isaac?” 

“Tell Daddy and Papa that I don’t feew good ‘cause even though it makes them scawed they help me feew better.” 

“Do you think you’ll go to your safe spot the next time you’re scared?” 

“I don’t fhink I weally need it all the time anymore.” 

“Why not?” 

“’Cause Daddy and Papa give cuddles and help me wif my med’cine and that makes me feew more better than hiding under the table all awone.” 

Though Stiles and Derek couldn’t see Isaac’s expression during the last ten seconds of the recording, they could both sense that he was smiling, feeling happy and safe and proud of himself for seeking help instead of hiding away. Stiles grabbed a tissue from the side table and dried his eyes, emotion evoked from the short clip enough to cause him to shed a few tears; the past two months had just been so _hard_ and hearing Isaac talk so confidently about choosing him and Derek over his safe spot even one time gave him such relief. 

“What he did the night of the strawberry incident was a very big step forward for Isaac. It’s definitely something you want to encourage him to do more often. Don’t be discouraged by a few steps backwards over the next few months, though. Many things are still trial and error for him right now and he’s trying to navigate new feelings.” 

A part of Stiles wondered if Isaac’s bad day at school was just what Dr. Galler had told them to expect during that late-October session or something more. How could Isaac have grown so much over the past few months only to recede so quickly? As he sat at a long light with Isaac’s wails still going strong behind him, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath to try and quell the worry that the break they’d been hoping for wouldn’t be coming any time soon. 

x 

“He’s not going to have an attack every time he cries, Derek! You need to stop being so overprotective!” Stiles yelled, words spilling out of his mouth before he could even stop them. He’d just endured a horrible drive home in which Isaac had screeched and kicked the back of the passenger seat for the full ten minutes. The toddler was now crouched beneath the dining room table, Derek squatting beside him with the hope that he could get him to come out. 

“Overprotective? Are you kidding me?” Derek responded, eyebrows knitted together in anger as he stood up. “I had to be the bad guy, Stiles! I had to be the one that begged you to agree to let the doctors intubate Isaac so that he could have a break from struggling.” Derek took a deep breath and clenched his fist against his side, unwilling to let it go. “He’s always struggling and I’m tired of feeling like I can’t help him!” 

“You think I don’t feel like that?” 

“I don’t know what you feel, Stiles! It seems like lately you’re feeling nothing at all!” 

Stiles wished he could argue Derek’s accusation, but he couldn’t. Most of the past week had been just him in his office planning and gearing up for the state testing that would be happening in a few weeks. The only time he’d spent with Isaac was during his nightly breathing treatments where he’d opted for books on tape instead of having to read aloud because he was so exhausted. 

“Papa!” Isaac cried, coughing a little. “Pa-pa!” 

“He’s wheezing,” Derek said as he squatted down again, arms out as a means of welcoming Isaac into them. “Come here, Ize,” he cooed. 

“Can something not revolve around his asthma for one second?!” 

“Did we not just spend nearly a week in the PICU, or have you forgotten-”

“You’re coddling him instead of teaching him that his behavior is inappropriate!” 

“Of course I’m coddling him! He’s obviously upset!” Derek yelled. “For Isaac to be in his ‘safe spot’ something had to have happened. What did his teacher say?” 

“That he had a meltdown in music and that he spent the day being antisocial. When I went to get him he ripped his project up and wouldn’t let me go near him,” Stiles explained, exasperated. 

“Did you ask him what was wrong?” 

He hadn’t. 

“Maybe if you’d tried communicating with him we wouldn’t be at this point,” Derek said as he gestured to a still-sobbing Isaac beneath the table. 

Stiles’ neck was growing hot beneath his collar, throat feeling just a little smaller than it had a few minutes ago. He slipped his hand into his pocket and made a fist around his inhaler, the one he kept not for him but for Isaac, before backing out of the room and slamming his office door behind him, breaths so shallow he wondered if three puffs would be enough. 

With his tie undone and his collar loose, Stiles closed his eyes and tried to breathe, eyes stinging as he forced them shut, the absence of Isaac’s agonizing cries more painful than the past fifteen minutes’ worth of screaming. 


	12. Chapter 12

“Miss Joyce said that you got upset during music today,” Derek said softly as he grabbed the shampoo bottle and squeezed a dollop into his hands. Isaac’s playful babbling and pushing of his yellow rubber duck around in the water stopped, room growing quiet as he pulled the toy against his chest. 

“Was someone being mean to you, honey?” he asked as he held the soap in his palm, afraid to make a move toward the now on-edge toddler. Isaac gave a small shake ‘no’ of his head and continued to hold the duck close, body leaning slightly away from Derek. He thought about letting the topic go, but the guarded, defensive stance that his son had taken on worried him, so he continued to press gently. 

“Did someone say something that hurt your feelings?” Again, he shook his head once to the left and right, the rest of his body not moving an inch. “Were you being yelled at?” Another ‘no’. 

“When you’re ready to talk about it Daddy and I are here to listen, okay?” Derek assured him, just as Dr. Galler had explained back in September. Isaac made a small nod and slowly let his arms fall, rubber duck back in the water but body still rigid, toddler watching his papa through his peripheral vision. 

“Is it okay if I wash your hair now?” And there Derek was, back at the beginning, asking Isaac questions to make him more comfortable with the idea of someone making contact with him. The toddler took a moment to think about the question before giving a short nod, shoulders and neck still tense as Derek gently lathered the soap into Isaac’s hair. 

x

“Something had to have happened at school, Stiles,” Derek insisted as he leaned against the doorframe of his husband’s office. He was still unhappy about what had happened just a few short hours ago, but at that very moment he was so concerned with Isaac that talking to Stiles was a necessity. 

“Did you ask him?” 

“Yeah, but he wouldn’t say anything. When I dropped him off this morning he was fine. Sang in the car, chatted as I walked him to his classroom. And then just now he was acting really weird in the tub. I had to start asking for his permission to do everything like we had to back in September because he was so tense.” Derek took a deep breath and crossed his arms against his chest. “I know he can be temperamental but he doesn’t just get like that anymore, you know? I mean, for him to be hysterical like that when you showed up-”

“He wasn’t crying when I got to his school,” Stiles interrupted quietly, eyes avoiding Derek’s. 

“Wait, I’m confused,” Derek said as he took a step deeper into the room. “You told me that his teacher said he had a meltdown earlier in the day and that when you went to pick him up he was upset.” 

“He was upset when I got there but he wasn’t crying,” Stiles stated, knowing he’d have to elaborate if he wanted Derek to stop staring at him with those intense brown eyes. 

“I…I couldn’t get him to hold my hand in the parking lot and I kind of got…I guess I got frustrated and I was _yelling_ and I may have been a little forceful trying to get him into his car seat,” Stiles rambled as he leaned his elbows on his desk and covered his face with his hands, hoping Derek would understand why he couldn’t just snap himself out of the anger. 

“What do you mean by _a little forceful_?” Derek’s voice was hovering on the verge of irritation, and in that instant any hope that Stiles had of his husband understanding disappeared. 

“I wasn’t even angry at Isaac!” Stiles sighed and shook his head. “I had a horrible day at work and he just wouldn’t _behave_ and I-”

“Stiles.” 

“He was kicking and screaming and I had to get out of there, Derek. It was like that time at Target and I didn’t want Isaac to be the center of attention-”

“Did you hurt him?” Derek’s voice deepened as he took a step towards Stiles. 

“No, God no! I would never hurt him, Derek!” Stiles yelled as he let his hands fall and tried to make eye contact with his husband. “How could you even think that?!”

Derek took a calming breath and closed his eyes, knowing that his animal instincts, his will to protect, had taken over. “I’m sorry,” he said, putting one hand up. “I know that you’d never hurt him, Stiles.” 

“I swear that all I did was grab his hand and pull him across the parking lot. You know how he is when he gets like that and you try to lift him up and he just kicks and flails. And then I had to hold his legs down to get the straps of his car seat secure but I swear it wasn’t anything more than any other parent of a toddler in the middle of a tantrum has had to do before.” 

Derek looked at the floor, disappointed in himself for ever letting himself think that Stiles would lay a finger on Isaac like that. 

“Look, it’s probably just the steroids making him moody,” Stiles said. “If something happened at school it could have been as small as someone not sharing a toy or sticking their tongue out at him.” 

“I feel like it’s more than that, though,” Derek said, instincts leading him. “Do you think someone teased him about having two dads?” 

“I don’t know, maybe,” Stiles shrugged. 

“I was thinking it was something bigger than that. Not that that isn’t big.” 

“Bigger as in…?”

“As in having something to do with his birth parents.” 

“Shannon and Paul?” 

“Yeah.” Derek ran a hand through his hair before letting it fall to his side. “Dr. Galler said that he hadn’t really dealt with those feelings yet during one of the last sessions and I was just thinking that maybe it’s starting.” 

Stiles closed his laptop and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “She said he’d talk about it when he was ready.” 

“Maybe this is his way of telling us he’s ‘ready’, though. I don’t blame him for feeling confused or angry about everything. We don’t really know because we’ve never asked him and he’s never shown any indication that something was bothering him until now.” 

“I’m sure that whatever it is it will come out if it’s important,” Stiles said before rubbing his face to wake himself up since he still hadn’t finished everything he’d wanted to get done before bed. 

“Yeah,” Derek sighed, exhausted with not only the emotional state of the household but the way in which the week had dragged on. Grateful that it was at least Thursday night, he yawned and rubbed at the stubble on his chin and neck, purposely lingering in the doorway as he noticed Stiles’ not-so-easy breathing. “Hey, you feeling okay?” he asked. 

“Yeah, why?” Stiles answered, voice wavering. 

“Your cheeks are flushed,” he explained as he motioned to his own cheeks. “You really only get like that when your asthma’s acting up.” 

“I took a few puffs earlier,” Stiles shrugged. “Not a big deal.” 

Derek hovered for a few seconds more to see if Stiles would say anything else before adding, “Isaac’s upstairs waiting for you to do his treatment.” 

“You can do it. I’m too tired.” 

“After today I think you two could use a little bonding time, don’t you think?” He raised one eyebrow, his way of answering the question for Stiles, before giving a small smile and heading for the dining room table so that he could send a batch of emails from his laptop before bed. 

Stiles dragged himself up the stairs, feeling as though he was nearing zombie-status even though it was only eight o’clock. His eyelids kept trying to stay shut as he prepped Isaac’s nebulizer and settled him in the rocking chair with _The Missing Piece_ by Shel Silverstein, one of the toddler’s favorites. 

“It was missing a piece and it was not happy,” Stiles read tiredly as Isaac’s eyes scanned the pictures on the pages over his mask. “So it set off in search of its missing piece. And as it rolled it sang this song, “Oh, I'm looking for my missin' piece, I'm looking for my missin' piece. Hi-dee-ho, here I go, lookin' for my missin' piece." 

As always, Stiles stopped just outside of Isaac’s doorway before getting into bed himself. His Dream Lite was on and casting colorful shapes across the ceiling, the toddler singing softly to himself as he often was, voice on the verge of sleep. Stiles was able to make out “hi-dee-ho, hewe I go, lookin’ for my missin’ piece”, a small smile breaking out and giving him just enough reassurance that maybe things would slowly but surely get closer to the normalcy he so desperately wanted before he slipped into the covers of his bed, asleep before he could even find something to dream about. 

x

It wasn’t like Stiles to push people away, but Derek had seen him do it once before back when Stiles was in high school and the two were just starting to figure out that maybe there was more of a connection between them than just Scott. It was after Stiles’ father had briefly stepped down as Sheriff, right when he and Scott had stopped talking. Back when they thought that Jackson had died and Lydia had come running straight to him, causing him to break his feelings for her once and for all after what was arguably the second most painful week of his life. 

Derek could still remember pinning Scott against the wall after things had finally settled down for everyone else in the pack, anger surging through him as he scolded the beta for ditching his best friend. 

“It’s been a month, Derek! He doesn’t want to talk to me!” Scott had yelled as he fought Derek’s grip. 

“Stiles isn’t like you, Scott! He’s not going to ask for help!” 

“I’m not as weak as you think I am!” Scott shouted. 

Derek let his arms drop and shook his head as Scott fell to the ground and landed in a heap, anger now coming in the form of forceful exhales through both wolves. “It’s sad that your first worry was how I see you compared to others,” Derek said as he caught his breath. 

“I don’t understand what that has to do with Stiles!” 

At that, Derek came right up to Scott who was now bent over himself in exhaustion from fighting, and purposely put his face in his. “It has everything to do with Stiles,” he muttered through gritted teeth. He took a deep breath to steady himself and his voice. “If you took a moment to think about how good a friend he’s been to you, you wouldn’t have had to ask. But since you did, I’ll give you an answer. Think about this: Your best friend, a fragile human, always running around solving your little werewolf conundrums, putting himself in danger even though he could get killed. Imagine this: Him waiting for you, not even to hear you say ‘thank you’, but to have someone familiar help him see that things are going to be okay.” 

Scott looked away when Derek’s gaze became too much for him to bear, the truth overwhelming. “He was there for you before the Bite and he stuck with you through it even though you treated him like shit. And I don’t know why he still considers you his best friend, but he’s miserable and he needs _you_ , Scott.” 

The beta had promised he wouldn’t tell Stiles that he’d had to be nudged into ringing the doorbell of the Stilinski house. The Sheriff had answered the door and let him in without a word, Scott muttering a small 'thanks' before climbing the stairs and turning the knob of Stiles’ bedroom. 

It didn’t take much observing to realize that Stiles’ asthma was flaring. The air purifier was out and oscillating in the corner, nebulizer a permanent fixture on his desk beside his computer with the telltale box of solution. And at least two of the orange circles that capped his rescue inhalers, the ones he usually leaned back in his chair with and shot in the air like highlighter caps, were embedded like random spots in his navy blue carpet. 

“Hey,” was all Scott could manage after a month without his best friend by his side, and the reality of the situation finally set in when Stiles turned from his screen and gave a raspy, “Hi,” in response. 

“Did my dad put you up to this?” Stiles had asked, and it felt like he was talking to a stranger. Scott was leaner, taller. His bushy black hair had grown and he’d bought a new hoodie. “Because if he did, I-”

“He didn’t,” Scott stated, and it was the truth. Half of it at least, which, by Scott’s standards, was always enough. “I just figured, you know, since we haven’t really spoken much in the last month or so that maybe we could…start talking again?” 

Derek could feel Stiles’ apprehension from miles away, but he could also feel a bud of relief, the constriction in Stiles’ lungs lessening just enough to break him from the month-long flare his father had made him see a pulmonologist for. He could always sense the slight narrowing of Stiles’ airways when trouble came to Beacon Hills and he fought beside the pack, but he didn’t know that it was asthma. That some nights, after the pack had taken care of things, he went home and took long, hot showers before prepping a treatment, even if it was three in the morning and his dad might hear. 

Derek had always been able to feel Stiles’ struggle with air, but it’d never had a name. He thought it was just anxiety, knew the teen had suffered bouts of it ever since his mother had passed. Being aware of it was pure instinct in the same way that he could hear Stiles’ heartbeat clear across town. It wasn’t until that August night when Stiles’ cold had reached a critical point that he realized how serious the constriction could get, and he’d been so exhausted from work and trying to save money for their wedding that he almost hadn’t noticed. 

x

“Der?” Stiles whispered breathlessly as his hand fell on his sleeping husband’s back later that night. He dragged in a slow, agonizing breath before calling out for him again. 

“Hmm?” Derek groaned as he shifted a bit beneath the sheets, Stiles’ voice too low to really wake him. 

“C-can’t breathe,” he managed, heart rate increasing at the realization, eyes wide in the darkness as he turned towards his nightstand to try and find his inhaler. Before he could get a hold of it, though, he felt two strong hands maneuver his torso so that he was sitting up against Derek’s warm body, lungs aching more and more with each shallow, wheezy breath. Stiles felt the plastic of his inhaler in his hand a moment later, cap off and canister already shaken, and brought it to his mouth to take two quick puffs. He let his head fall back against his husband as the albuterol began to take effect, his stubble scratching at the top of Stiles’ head a comfort he was suddenly grateful to have. 

“M’sorry…I woke you,” he said before letting out a few small coughs. 

“Just breathe, Stiles,” Derek coached as he rubbed his husband’s arm with gentle strokes, voice easy-going from both sleep and concern. Stiles closed his eyes and tried to focus on his breathing, but the silence began to bother him, emotions from the day taking over and causing his mind to race. 

“R-remember when y-you offered…to change me?” Stiles asked softly, inhaler still in his hand as he shifted so that he could lean deeper into Derek’s body. 

“Shh, let the medicine work,” Derek soothed. 

“When I was…in the hospital,” he continued, ignoring Derek’s instructions. “You were holding my hand.” A small smile came across Stiles’ slightly parted lips in the dark. “A-and you said, ‘If you let me change you…you’ll never have to feel that again.’ Do you remember?” 

“Yes,” Derek whispered. 

“And I said, ‘-”

“No. You said, ‘No.’.” 

Stiles took another slow, wheezy breath in and licked his lips. “I bet you…wonder why.” 

Derek didn’t answer, just listened to his husband struggle, knowing that the medicine was still making its way through his weak lungs. 

“I wasn’t sure you’d…understand,” Stiles continued. “The way you offered…the reason you wanted to give me the bite…and you still didn’t push.” 

“Do you want me to get the machine out?” Derek asked. 

“M’fine,” Stiles wheezed. “And you’re avoiding…the conversation.” 

Derek clenched his jaw, thankful that Stiles couldn’t see it, and sighed. “It’s been a few minutes and you’re still having a hard time.” 

“Of course I’m having… _a hard time_ , Derek,” Stiles responded with a bit of sarcasm. “My airways decided to randomly…become inflamed…and fill with-”

“Babe, can you please limit the talking?” Derek asked, though it wasn’t really a question as much as a command. “At least until your wheezing lessens? Jesus, I’m surprised it didn’t wake me up in the first place. I don’t even know how you have the breath to talk right now.” Stiles lifted his hand with the inhaler in it as a reply, knowing Derek could see it now that their eyes had adjusted in the dark. 

“Anyway, I’m glad you woke me,” Derek said softly as he leaned his chin atop Stiles’ head. “And I’m sorry that I was such a short fuse this afternoon when you got home with Isaac.” 

“This isn’t your fault,” Stiles whispered. 

“I don’t know,” Derek shrugged, voice barely audible. “Lately it just feels like a lot of things are; I know I can be difficult and stubborn. And I’m trying with Isaac. I’m trying so damn hard.” He took in a shaky breath and for a moment Stiles thought his husband might start crying. “I want to be able to fix it. Make everything okay when it isn’t and I _can’t_.” 

“I know you wish you could…take it away. From me. And Isaac,” Stiles said before swallowing and taking as deep a breath as he could. “That it keeps you awake some nights.” Like it will tonight, Derek thought as his stomach continued to grow with anxiety. Only Stiles and Isaac had ever been able to do that to him since Laura was gone. Make him feel. Fill him with love and worry and the instinct to protect. It was what he loved most about them, and he knew that if they were bitten that all of that would change. That his instincts would change with them, and what would he do if he couldn’t feel that any longer? It was selfish, of course, but knowing that Stiles had said ‘no’ and that Isaac was too young to survive the bite was enough to help him power through those agonizing moments of worry. 

“If I had kept my temper down earlier, hadn’t stressed you out-”

“I got a pink slip today,” Stiles whispered, chest tightening at the thought. 

“What?” 

“T-they said that…the budget might not p-pass, and I was one of the…the last ones hired …” Stiles choked out, hot tears streaming down his cheeks. He hadn’t meant to cry, knew it would clog his nose and make his breathing worse, but the silent sobs had come anyway. 

“Honey, I’m so sorry,” Derek said softly, Stiles nodding in reply as his husband tried to sit him up just enough to quell the wheeze that had picked up again. “We’ll figure it out, okay? Maybe the budget will pass and the hype is all for nothing.” 

“I’m up for t-tenure, Derek…a-and I…I finally got… _comfortable_ …” Stiles rambled, inhales strained and exhales so wheezy that Derek was afraid that they were beyond a third puff from the inhaler. 

“I’m getting the nebulizer,” Derek stated gently. “Let me grab a packet from Ize’s-”

“N-no,” Stiles wheezed, the fingers of his left hand weaving between those of Derek’s and squeezing tight. “Don’t. Just…hold me? P-please?” 

Derek almost objected, had even opened his mouth to tell Stiles how afraid he got when he strained so much to get a decent breath of air that he could feel every muscle in his husband’s body working for it. Instead, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly; Stiles knew his asthma better than Derek ever could, sans the night that August when he’d ended up in the ER, and right now he needed control more than anything else. 

So Derek took every pillow on the bed and lined them against the headboard before pulling Stiles against him again, shifting them both onto their sides until they found an angle Stiles could breathe comfortably at. He fell asleep with the uncapped inhaler in his right hand, just in case, Stiles’ hand residing in his left. 

x

Stiles’ alarm went off at five thirty the next morning but he’d been up most of the night breathing at half-capacity, propped up against the pillows pushing for his lungs to just open up and work. Still in sleep pants and a t-shirt, he pulled his nebulizer from the closet and snuck into Isaac’s room to grab a packet of medication, careful to keep his footfalls soft so as not to wake his husband or his son. He put the TV on low once he got comfortable on the couch downstairs and took deep, even breaths of the medication, lungs thankful for the misty relief. 

It was about five minutes into his fifteen minute treatment that he noticed Isaac standing with his blankie wrapped around his shoulders like a cape, pacifier in his mouth as he watched worriedly between the middle bars of the stairwell. Unable to leave his place on the couch, he waved the toddler over, hoping that it would be enough. When he saw that it wasn’t, he took the mouthpiece out of his mouth and patted the open spot beside him with a raspy, “It’s okay, Ize.” 

“Daddy sick?” he asked as he hobbled down the rest of the stairs, pacifier hanging from its clip on his shirt as he scrambled across the living room and hopped onto the couch. 

“Just a little,” he coughed before taking a few deep breaths from the mouthpiece again. “I’m sorry I woke you, honey.” 

“It otay,” Isaac shrugged, and Stiles couldn’t help but smile at how much the action reminded him of Derek. “I read to you.” 

Stiles wanted to protest since it was so early in the morning and he really wasn’t in the mood, but Isaac was already dragging his blankie across the living room, free hand rummaging through the basket of books nestled among a few of the toddler’s toys in the corner. “Luna!” Isaac announced as he held the book up for him to see before getting comfy beside Stiles. “Daddy loves ‘Luna,” he smiled as he opened to the first page of Janell Cannon’s _Stellaluna_. 

“One suponna time there was a baby bat who lost his mama bat,” Isaac began, finger quickly running across the text on the page as if he were an expert reader. It made Stiles smile again as his lips stayed secured around the mouthpiece, lungs still craving every molecule of albuterol that they could get. The toddler continued to read, turning some pages with his whole hand for just a moment before correcting himself and trying to use just his index finger and thumb so as not to wrinkle the pages. Stiles couldn’t get over how Isaac had taken charge of the story, changing details around and giggling when a picture was too funny to narrate right away. 

“And the mama bird ‘dopted ‘Luna ‘cause he didn’t have a mama bat no more,” Isaac read, finger tapping on the page full of text. “And ‘Luna was scawed but it was otay ‘cause the mama bird gave him kisses and cuddles and helpded him learn how to fly.” 

Stiles felt his chest squeeze, but it wasn’t his asthma; Isaac, he realized, was paralleling his own experience with the storyline of the book. He suddenly wished Derek were there to share the moment, but he didn’t dare stop Isaac from finishing. Thinking that maybe Derek had been right about Isaac trying to reach out and express his feelings about the past few months, he patiently listened to each and every one of the toddler’s words. 

By the time Isaac said, “The end,” Stiles nebulizer had been dry for a few minutes. He’d held out so that he didn’t disturb the toddler’s reading, finally shutting the machine off and opening his arms for a much needed cuddle session. 

“That was the best reading of ‘ _Luna_ that I have ever heard,” Stiles smiled before kissing Isaac on his forehead and covering the two of them in the toddler’s baby blue blanket. “Thank you, honey. It made me feel a lot better.” 

“Welcome,” Isaac blushed as he snuggled against Stiles’ chest. 

“I’m sorry that I yelled at you after school yesterday,” Stiles apologized as he brushed his fingers through Isaac’s hair. The toddler clutched his pacifier and tensed up, pulling the corner of his blanket into his other hand for comfort. “I know it’s hard for you to say how you’re feeling sometimes and that you get overwhelmed when there’s a lot of noise and people. You were sad and I wanted to make you feel better but I didn’t know how to so I got frustrated. I also had a bad day at work and that had made me sad, too. What happened yesterday afternoon is not your fault, sweetheart. Okay?” 

Isaac gave a small nod, body still rigid against his father, blanket tight in his fist. “But I made you sick,” he whisper-sniffled as he hid his face in Stiles’ shirt. 

“Oh, honey, you didn’t make me sick,” he assured the toddler with the softest tone he could manage. “I’m just upset about work, baby boy.” 

“But you onwy take med’cine when you’re stwessed and I was bad yesterday.” 

“You weren’t being bad at all, Isaac. We were both having an off day and I made it worse by getting angry at you,” Stiles explained, but he knew it wasn’t enough. If he was going to rid Isaac of his guilt, he was going to have to do better than that. “Hey, do you know what my favorite time of the day is?” 

Isaac thought for a moment, still refusing to lift his head completely from Stiles’ shirt, and responded with, “When Papa makes your coffee?” 

“No, that’s my second favorite,” he laughed. “It’s when I get to pick you up from school or Gampa’s and you tell me all about your day on the car ride home,” Stiles smiled as he rubbed gentle circles around Isaac’s back. 

“Weally?” he asked as he looked up, eyes smiling. 

"Really," Stiles smiled. “Now, how about we squeeze in some Nick Jr. before Papa gets up?” Stiles offered as he changed the channel, the toddler nodding happily as he sucked on his pacifier and cuddled against his daddy. 

He’d expected to feel Isaac’s gaze on him as they watched _Little Bear_ , but every glance into his peripheral told him that the toddler was too busy following the animals on the TV to bother with what Dr. Galler had termed hyper vigilance, and that? That shocked Stiles. Because following every one of his attacks (and Stiles’ on the rare occasion that his asthma acted up), Isaac would go into a state of hyper awareness where he couldn’t keep his eyes off of his daddy or papa, often watching them with such intensity that sometimes he’d hold his breath, eyes wide as if he were waiting for something bad to happen. 

Concerned, they’d brought it up to Dr. Galler, who’d reminded them that Isaac was still trying to figure out how responses from his new parents worked. In Isaac’s case, it was the care they offered during his most vulnerable moments, from cradling him in their arms and coaching him through puffs of his inhaler to keeping tabs on him for hours after and expressing their worry through body language. 

“He’s never had parents who respond to his attacks like that and he can sense your anxiety,” she explained. “He’s just trying to figure out whether it’s the good or bad kind. Until now, he’s only ever known bad anxiety. Nervousness. Anticipating that something negative will happen, forcing him to think the attack and everything that happens as a result is his fault. For the first time he’s grappling with the idea that people can be anxious because they care, not because they’re upset or want to inflict pain.” 

“But he becomes hyper vigilant after he sees me use my inhaler or take a treatment, too.” Stiles had added. 

“Isaac knows that stress is your main trigger. And when family situations that involve him grow tense, he sees that they sometimes cause you to get sick. He worries when he sees you like that but he’s conflicted because he confuses concern with guilt.” 

“He’s always apologizing for things he doesn’t need to be sorry about,” Derek said before going into the details of one particular night when they’d woken to Isaac crying through the monitor. His covers were rumpled, toddler missing when they went to check on him. Derek could hear quick sniffles coming from beneath the bed, so he’d had Stiles crouch down and pull Isaac out, wetness from his clothes transferring onto his as Derek turned the whale lamp on. 

“I had a bad dweam,” Isaac wheezed as he clung to Stiles. 

“Your bed’s all wet, honey,” Derek said softly when he realized Isaac had had an accident. 

“I sowwy,” he sniffled, on the verge of tears again as he hid his face in Stiles’ shirt. “I sowwy, I sowwy.” 

“Shh, it’s okay, Isaac. It was an accident. We’ll just take a quick bath and change your sheets,” Stiles explained. 

“I sowwy I was bad,” he wheeze-sniffled. 

“You don’t have to be sorry, sweetheart. You didn’t do anything wrong. That’s why it’s called an accident,” Stiles assured him. 

The toddler sniffled the entire five minutes in the bathtub as Stiles washed him since he’d soaked himself through every article of clothing he was wearing as well as his bed sheets. He made a mental note to not let him have so much to drink before bed and to buy a pack of pull-ups for nighttime even though Isaac was fully potty trained. Derek had offered to change the sheets, thankful he’d purchased a rubber sheet to go beneath the fitted one for moments like this. 

“He sounds like he needs a treatment,” Derek said groggily as he rubbed his face when Stiles returned with Isaac in a towel. 

“You have to be up in two hours. Go back to bed, I’ll make sure he’s okay,” Stiles offered. 

“You have to be up in two hours, too.” 

“He only needs a few puffs of his inhaler, it’ll take five minutes tops.” 

“You did it last time. Go ahead, get some sleep,” Derek insisted. 

“He’s going to fight it,” Stiles yawned. “And you’re gong to need my help.” So while Derek changed Isaac into new underwear and a loose t-shirt, Stiles got the inhaler and spacer ready. 

“No!” he whined when he saw Stiles bring the inhaler and spacer into view. “I don’t want!” 

“You’re wheezing, honey,” Stiles said. 

“It make me shaky!” 

“I’ll use the non-shaky medicine,” Stiles assured him softly as he switched the Proventil with Xopenex from his nightstand drawer. “See?” 

“N-no,” he cried as he tried to climb out of Derek’s arms. “I sowwy. I didn’t mean to be bad. Don’t make me!” 

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Isaac. We just want to make sure you don’t have an attack from your bad dream. How about Daddy takes a puff first?” Stiles asked, and Derek realized why he wouldn’t be able to handle it on his own. He couldn’t use the medicine like Stiles, and it broke his heart. He tried to hold Isaac still as Stiles modeled two puffs, the toddler’s whining growing louder when he realized it was his turn. 

“N-no!” he cried, turning his head away from Stiles, who began to secure the spacer mask against his tear-streaked face anyway, knowing from experience that they’d never get it done at this hour if they waited for him to agree. Four puffs later, Isaac was still crying, power in his breaths increased due to the medicine. 

“Shh, you did so good, baby boy,” Stiles cooed when they were done, taking him from Derek and wrapping him in his blankie to give a few sips of water from his cup. “It’s okay, relax.” 

“I sowwy I was bad,” he continued to sniffle after he’d calmed from the water. “I won’t do it again. I pwomise.” 

“Honey, we’re not mad at you. Not at all. Close your eyes, I’ll stay ‘til you fall asleep,” Stiles soothed as he placed a pacifier in the toddler’s mouth, the sucking sensation calming him. His eyelids fluttered closed. 

“One day he’s going to realize that not everything bad that happens is his fault,” Dr. Galler promised. 

“But when?” Stiles had wanted to ask, found himself needing to know at that very moment. 

It was as he and Isaac cuddled post-treatment as Little Bear jumped about their flat screen that he got his answer. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! I know it's been a while since I last posted; I'm sorry. I've been super busy with work. The good news is that school's out for summer, so I will have more time to write. I'd like to say thank you to everyone who has stuck with me thus far and to my beta, Casey, who is AWESOME at what she does!
> 
> Please leave a review/comment. Kudos are cool, too. It just lets me know what you guys are thinking and also makes my day. :)

Stiles was rearranging lessons early that Saturday morning when the door to his office creaked open just enough to catch his attention. 

“Isaac? What’s wrong, baby?” he asked with open arms when he saw that the toddler was crying. 

“I has a missing piece,” Isaac mumbled through his tears, arms wrapped tightly around his tummy. 

“A missing piece?” Stiles asked, playing along as he leaned over in his chair towards his son. “Where’d it go?” 

“H-heaven,” he said, voice small as he sniffled, and Stiles felt his heart collapse in on itself. 

“Oh, Isaac,” he whispered as he pulled the toddler into his arms and held him tight as he sobbed with his entire body. 

“I miss Mama,” he whimpered and Stiles lifted him up so that he could rock him from foot to foot. 

“I know you do, baby. It’s okay to miss her,” he assured Isaac. 

“Pwomise?” 

“Promise.” 

“Do you miss Gamma?” 

“Every day,” Stiles admitted softly, knowing exactly what had to be done. 

x

“These are yours, honey,” Stiles explained as he gently spread the pictures the case worker had given them out on the living room carpet for Isaac to see. “There’s only four, though, so we have to be careful with them.” 

“Mama!” Isaac exclaimed as he reached a small hand out and picked up one of him and her touching noses. “Mama kisses!” he explained with a smile as he tried to show Stiles, tear trails drying on his red cheeks. 

Stiles couldn’t decide how he felt about watching Isaac with the pictures; it was like every little string that had developed between them over the past five months was pulling tight, threatening to break. The toddler had mentioned Mama a few times before, but it wasn’t until ten minutes ago that Stiles realized that Isaac had been grieving, and how could he deny him that process? 

Isaac grabbed another picture and let his blue eyes study it for a moment, one hand coming to his lips as he let himself get lost in the pixels. Stiles had to look away to keep the tears from coming, watching Isaac remember his mother making it feel like he was looking at a stranger. 

It was a reminder that Isaac hadn’t always been theirs, that even though Stiles had spent his whole life wishing for a child as sweet and loveable as Isaac, he’d once been someone else’s. Someone else’s baby boy and universe, he’d hoped, the first thing on their mind before they fell asleep and upon waking in the morning. 

Shannon Lahey hadn’t admitted to Social Services that the money issues they were experiencing were a direct result of her husband’s drinking. That Isaac’s medication was never refilled because she had no control over their finances. When they first questioned Paul’s excessive alcohol use, Shannon had promised that he was attending AA meetings despite the fact that the growing number of disorderly conduct police reports proved otherwise. He was suspended from his position in the firehouse after it was found that he was responding to calls under the influence, PBA card no longer helpful once his reputation had been soured. 

Shannon had struggled with alcohol on-and-off herself, but it was Mr. Lahey that had been verbally and physically abusive; Isaac’s weren’t the only hospital records on file in the case. Stiles’ father had mentioned the one encounter he could remember with Shannon as he and his son went over paperwork concerning the adoption. How she’d seemed so afraid, nervous that the police and social services would find out her secrets. He’d sensed the abuse, had put in a call, but Social Services was already on it, he was told, and after he filed his report, that was it. The Lahey’s had slipped through the cracks; it was as plain, and sad, as that. 

Stiles had never met Shannon, nor had there been any record of her stating that she was afraid of her husband, but he’d had it set in his mind for a while now that that was the truth. That that night his father had responded to the dispatch call Shannon had been trying to protect her precious child. Somehow, this story created a sense of comfort for Stiles; thinking these things made it just a little bit easier to bear the circumstances of which the toddler had become the center of their lives. 

And then Stiles was thinking about his own mother, how her eyes had smiled and her freckles would grow darker in the summer, and a few unwelcome tears slid down his own cheeks. All of the air deflated from his lungs and he closed his eyes as little arms wrapped around him, a sweet kiss landing on his wet cheek. 

“It otay, Daddy,” Isaac whispered as he comforted Stiles from behind, his small hand rubbing his back in little circles. “I miss Gamma, too.” 

“Thanks, baby,” he smiled as he wiped beneath his eyes. 

Derek appeared just then in the doorway to the living room with a bag of bagels and the newspaper, worry apparent in the way his eyebrows were joined. “What’s going on?” 

“We has missing pieces,” Isaac sniffled, and Stiles could feel his own tears pressing again, just enough to let him know they were ready to fall once the right nerve was hit. 

It took Derek a few seconds to respond to what was unfolding before him, the phrase “missing pieces” confusing him until he saw that Stiles had pulled their safe box down, which was now open on the middle of the living room floor. The bag of bagels and newspaper would have to wait; he set them down on the table in the hallway before approaching his husband and son, eyes afraid to look at the grey box in case he caught a glimpse of the few photos that remained from that awful day when he was sixteen, all but one partially destroyed by those flames that had taken so much from him. 

“I thought we weren’t going to show these to Isaac until he was older,” Derek said quietly, trying to keep his irritation from forcing the tone of his voice to rise. 

“He came into my office crying and when I asked what was wrong he said he missed his mother,” Stiles whispered as he watched Isaac pick up another photograph, the only one of the bunch that included his father. “You would have done the same if you’d heard the way his voice broke.” 

Derek sighed softly and nodded in agreement as he watched Isaac. He started thinking about how he looked at Isaac sometimes and wondered what he’d look like as a werepup. Not even his necessarily, though secretly a small part of Derek had always wanted that. He imagined his asthma attacks being stopped in their tracks by a set of healable lungs, the initial cries and hiccups forcing him to wolf-out and put a smile on his and Stiles’ faces instead of filling them with the fear that Isaac’s next breath might be his last. It was something he sometimes dreamt about when he was too tired to keep it from entering his mind, the small semblance of reassurance in the idea that maybe one day he’d grow out of the disease the one thing that kept him going. 

Derek took his eyes off of Isaac engaging with the photographs and found that one of the pictures splayed out on the carpet was of him as a weretot stumbling around in the backyard. His father’s face was just out of the frame, but his arms, those strong, loving arms, bordered his son’s tiny body, his index fingers and thumbs gripping Derek’s forearms so that he wouldn’t fall down. It made Derek wish another picture had been saved in its place, one of his parents when they first started dating or Laura at her Kindergarten graduation or even that black and white photograph of his grandparents, the ones he never actually knew, that was so faded he always had to fill in the trees and sky in the background to make it seem complete. Now the pictures that had been lost all felt like that, memories that were fading as the years post-fire wore on. On some nights, when he tried to distract himself from Stiles’ labored breathing, he busied his mind with the task of remembering the details of those lost photographs, usually that picture of his dark-haired mother with her hands pushing the camera away, light blue of her denim sundress coming back to him as he’d finally fall into the first stage of sleep. 

“Papa? Whose that?” Isaac asked as he pointed to the only picture left of Laura before those of their lives in New York that fill his laptop. 

“That’s…,” Derek started, looking to Stiles for direction; his husband nodded for him to go on, to which he answered faintly, “That’s your Aunt Laura, Isaac.” 

“Whewe is she?” 

Derek had to look away, could feel his heart pounding in his chest, face burning as he tried to form the answer on his lips. The silence in the room told him that Stiles was giving him the space he was always so grateful to be given when things got too emotional for him to bear, but he couldn’t even get himself to say the word in his head. He wasn’t religious, hated using _heaven_ as his answer, though that wasn’t the only reason why. 

“Maybe it means something different to everyone,” Stiles had whispered one night after an intense round of pillow talk that Derek is glad he consumed too much tequila to remember fully. 

“Is she your best girl fwiend? Like Aunt Lyddie is Daddy’s?” 

Even Stiles felt that question hit him right where it hurt. When the tears pooled and began to stream from Derek’s eyes, Stiles knew he’d been broken in a way that he hadn’t been in a long, long time. 

“Yes,” Derek croaked out, breaths coming fast as he tried to keep the pain from rising from his center. “She was my best friend. My only sister.” 

“Does she wive far away like Aunt Allie and Uncle Scott?” 

“No,” Derek shook his head, hand falling on his heart. “She went to heaven, Isaac. Like our mommies and my daddy.” 

“Why’d she have to go to heaven?” 

Things had already gone past the point where Derek usually shut down, and Stiles couldn’t help but think his husband looked wounded hunched over as he sat on the carpet, the arch in his eyebrows and pain in his eyes so in tune with each other that Stiles decided it was best to intervene. 

“Sometimes we don’t know why people go to heaven, honey,” Stiles sighed softly as he gathered the pictures in a careful pile and placed them into the grey box. 

“No!” Isaac cried out as Stiles went to lock the box. “Mama!” 

“They’ll be safe in here,” he tried to assure him, but Isaac was too busy carrying on to hear. 

“Mama!” he cried, hands going for the box as Stiles lifted it from the carpet. “No! No! I want my ma-ma!” 

“Shh,” Stiles tried to soothe as he lowered the box to the ground and took Isaac tightly in his arms. “I know you miss her, baby. Daddy knows it so much that it hurts.” 

“Mama!” he cried, sob reaching a tone Derek was sure he’d never heard before as Stiles bounced him lightly in his arms. “Ma-ma!” 

Derek’s first reaction was to chastise Stiles for pulling down the box in the first place, but as he watched Isaac sob in Stiles’ arms, fingers gripping his dad’s t-shirt for dear life while he wailed, he found himself taking a mental step back and a deep breath before standing up and wrapping his own arms around the two most important people in his life. 

x

Stiles didn’t go through Isaac’s backpack until the following Monday morning to add his peanut-free snacks and medications for Gampa’s. Finding his school folder full, he pulled it from the bag. As he began to scan the monthly newsletter he noticed a heart-shaped paper flutter to the floor, glue between the poem and colorful cardstock having made it stick. 

  
On Valentine’s Day come sit with me   
and make yourself a cup of tea!   
We’ll share our love, just Mommy and me,   
there’s no other place I’d rather be! 

Stiles’ eyes diverted quickly to the newsletter for more information; apparently the class was hosting a Mommy-and-Me Tea for Valentine’s Day. There was no sentence after the invite that discussed bringing someone special in the case that Mom couldn’t come and Stiles’ heart filled with dread. Of course he’d talk to Miss Joyce, would arrange something so that Isaac wasn’t alone at his class party. He tried not to let the lack of regard for their family dynamic bother him and instead focused on Isaac. 

How he already knew that the toddler would spend the entire tea watching the room explode with energy, eyes following each mom as she interacted with her child while they did a craft together or picked at snacks. It would be just like the two birthday parties he’d already attended for other children in his class: Moms either hovering over their child or standing clumped in a gossip circle in the corner. There were never dads, he noticed, and though he’d tried to mimic a sort of moderated version of what the mothers were collectively doing, it was blatantly obvious that Stiles, and Isaac, were different. 

It wasn’t even the “two dad’s” thing that annoyed Stiles the most; it was knowing that Isaac had had a mother, that her absence in his life felt somehow different than that of a child who had never had someone to call Mom in the first place. And Stiles understood that, which was why he hated parties that focused on gender and titles and why he never had them in his class. 

He felt a squeeze in his heart and shuddered when he read, “We’ve started practicing “You Are My Sunshine” in music so that we are in tip top shape to perform at our tea!” 

That song. The one that had Isaac screeching as they played a new children’s CD in the car sometime around Thanksgiving. The one that made Derek pull off to the shoulder so that Stiles could get to the backseat, where he couldn’t get the buckles of Isaac’s car seat undone quickly enough. The song that had Stiles swaddling Isaac in his blankie as they sat parked on the side of the road for nearly twenty minutes while the toddler sobbed “Mama” uncontrollably until he didn’t have the energy to cry anymore. 

It had been _their_ song, Derek and Stiles realized as they shared a long moment of eye contact once Isaac was safe and sound in the confines of dreamland, another reminder of the world their son had known when they weren’t in it. Stiles had spent countless hours trying to find a way to prevent it from happening again; “He can’t go his entire life being afraid of that song,” Derek continued to say whenever it was brought up, and Stiles knew he was right. 

So he waited until Derek returned to the kitchen to grab his final coffee for the morning before he wordlessly slid the invitation across the counter. 

“Well,” Derek sighed after reading it and pushing it back to Stiles. “This explains the past four days.” 

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed with a sigh. 

“I guess we can just not send him to school that day.” 

“Pretty sure they’re going to be talking about and making projects for this thing over the next few weeks. We can’t just keep him home and pretend like it isn’t happening,” Stiles explained. “Maybe I can take half of the day off.” 

“And be the only father?” 

“Something like this was going to happen sooner or later, Der.” 

“I was hoping _later_.” 

Stiles sighed and tapped his fingers on the counter. “Me too.” 

“Should we call Dr. Galler?” 

“No, I’m tired of running to her whenever things get confusing. She’s been great and all,” Stiles said, stopping Derek from interrupting by putting his hand up. “But we need to start handling things on our own without getting her direct advice all of the time.” 

Derek took a long breath in, jaw set as he stared at Stiles. 

“You don’t agree.” 

Derek exhaled slowly and swallowed, jaw barely moving in the process. 

“So you do agree?” Stiles asked. Derek looked away quickly and took a sip from his coffee mug. “Are we really going to play this game right now?” 

“Daddy?” Isaac asked from the doorway, his blanket hanging from one hand. 

“Yes, baby?” Stiles asked, voice softening as he turned away from Derek and focused on their son. 

“Let’s find your shoes, Ize,” Derek interrupted as he pulled his keys across the counter, metal scraping the granite. 

“But I don’t wanna go to Gampa’s,” Isaac sniffled. 

“We’re going to be late,” Derek said to him as wrapped his hand around Isaac’s shoulder and tried to push him gently into the hallway. 

“No!” Isaac whined. Derek was beginning to think it was the toddler’s new favorite word as he felt Isaac squirm from beneath his grip and watched him fall to a half-hysterical heap on the floor. “No!” 

“I just gave him his meds like fifteen minutes ago,” Stiles sighed as he bent down to pull the toddler up from the floor. “It’s the steroids. He can’t help it.” 

“I wanna stay wif you ‘nd Papa!” Isaac sobbed as he clung to Stiles, tears and drool staining his father’s light blue dress shirt as he carried on; it was moments like this that made Stiles and Derek feel most guilty about working full-time, and the fact that Isaac was refusing to go to his grandfather’s, the one place he loved to be the three days a week he didn’t attend school, worried Stiles. 

“Gampa’s waiting for you, Ize. He wants to take you down to the station for a bit to play with the police doggies,” Stiles soothed. 

“Doggies?” Isaac sniffled, perking up at the idea. 

“And maybe if you’re really, really good he’ll let you wear his Sheriff badge for a little while,” Derek added softly, Isaac’s face lighting up, tears forgotten. Stiles was thrown off for a second by his husband’s comment, how positive it was and how Isaac had responded to it. It made him think that maybe things were changing, that they could do this without rushing to call Dr. Galler when they didn’t have an answer. That maybe all Derek was doing in the kitchen as his eyes, those intense, dark eyes, focused on him, was holding back so that he wouldn’t, _couldn’t_ , say the wrong thing. 

He let his own lips curve into a smile as Isaac wiggled out of his arms and ran to find his shoes. 

“I agree,” Derek whispered post-peck on his way out the door. 

x

“So remember when I had that minor freak out just before Derek and I took Isaac home because I was afraid there’d be moments when he’d need a mom-like figure and we wouldn’t know what to do?” Stiles asked, words moving with barely a beat between them once he heard that Lydia had picked up. 

“Minor as in consumed nearly enough liquor to tranquilize-”

“Minor as in it was short-lived and I got my bearings straight once I realized how much I wanted to hold him in my arms.” 

Lydia paused for a moment before she asked, “You need me to play mom?” 

“No,” Stiles sighed. “More like…aunt? Isaac’s got this Valentine’s day tea at school and all of the kids are going to have their mothers there except for him and I know things are pretty busy for you in the lab and stuff around this time of year but-”

“Of course I’ll be there,” she replied softly. 

“He’s been having such a rough time lately and the whole tea thing really kept him upset all weekend and I just wanted him to have _one_ thing to look-”

“It’s fine, Stiles. I’m actually pretty honored that you asked me first.” 

Stiles pulled his head back and gave a confused laugh. “What makes you think I asked you first?” 

Lydia paused, just long enough for Stiles to notice that she had, forcing him to intervene with, “I was kidding. You’re the only one, Lydia. He needs someone that will make him feel like the luckiest little boy at that tea and that someone should be you. Even Derek said so.” 

“Not because Allison is three thousand miles away?” she asked in true Lydia fashion. 

“Isaac adores you, Lydia. And you’re the only one we trust with this,” Stiles said. “ _That’s_ why we’re asking you.” 

“Just give me the day and time and I’ll be there.” 

“I owe you big time for this,” Stiles insisted. 

“You don’t owe me for anything, Stiles,” Lydia laughed softly. “Isaac’s my little buddy. I like seeing him happy.” They shared a moment of smiles before she jumped in with, “Speaking of happy, how are things going between you and Derek?” 

Stiles knew she was talking about the late night messages he’d sent back when they’d first gotten home from the hospital and their days were filled with endless breathing treatments and running around the house trying to get Isaac to down all of his antibiotics and steroids instead of family days out; he’d begged Derek more than once to say yes to just a half hour to grab McDonalds or Panera only to be shot down. “His immune system isn’t strong enough yet,” Derek would mumble, and Stiles would find himself remembering watching Isaac struggling to breathe against the hugeness of the hospital bed. 

“Better,” Stiles said, sure that Lydia could infer his shrug through the phone. 

“Yeah, I don’t believe that for one second.” 

“Really, though, things have been pretty good,” Stiles said before giving her the details of their weekend. 

“You guys need a real night out,” Lydia proposed, which is how she ended up at their doorstep that Friday night. 

“Hey, we did his bath and treatment early so that you wouldn’t have to,” Stiles explained as he let her into the house. “As always, help yourself to whatever. The movie should be over by twelve thirty the latest, but we can come home early if-”

“We’ll be fine, Stiles. I’ve watched Isaac before,” Lydia stated. 

“Yeah, but his asthma’s different at night,” Derek interjected as he came down the stairs, fiddling to get his watch secured. “Make sure you keep the monitor on once you put him to bed. He usually coughs a little in his sleep, but if he has a fit or if it sounds like he can’t catch his breath then you need to go and check on him.” 

“Got it,” Lydia said with a swift nod, eyes rolling just enough for Stiles to pick up on. 

“Usually two or three puffs of his teal inhaler will help; it’s on his nightstand with the spacer. Oh, and I already set the nebulizer up in case you have to give him a treatment.” 

“We went through all of this the last time,” Lydia reminded him, sounding bored. 

“No peanuts or strawberries,” Derek continued, ignoring Lydia. “Benadryl and Epi-pens are-”

“Kitchen, first cabinet on the right. There’s another set in his room with the rest of his medications. _I know._ Now, go and enjoy your first real night off as parents.” 

“No liquids after seven. And he won’t sleep without Balto _and_ blankie, so-”

“Goodbye!” Lydia sung with a smile as she pushed Derek towards the door, Stiles following with a grin. 

“And no Spongebob!” Lydia heard after she’d slammed the door shut and turned the lock. She shook her head and chuckled, feeling pleased with herself before joining Isaac on the couch. 

“Nemo?” he asked, Balto in his lap. 

“You’ve got it, kiddo,” she smiled and grabbed the remote. 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for sticking with my story. I'm so glad that so many people are enjoying it. Shout out to Casey for always being the amazing beta reader that she is.
> 
> Please leave kudos and comments! They are greatly appreciated and help fuel my writing. I also want to know what you guys think/what your reactions are! :)

“On the way to school yesterday Isaac pointed to his belly and told me that his stuffing hurt,” Derek chuckled as he and Stiles flipped through their menus. “I told him that humans don’t have stuffing and then he asked me what a human was.” He shook his head, sharing a smile with Stiles before he added, “I don’t even know where he comes up with this stuff.” 

“Doc McStuffins,” Stiles explained knowingly, pinpointing the bacon cheeseburger he’d been craving all day at the top of his current menu page. “It’s a show on Disney about a little girl that takes care of her stuffed animals. I let him watch it while he does his morning treatment.” 

The waitress came over and took their drink and food orders before collecting their menus. 

“Anyway,” Derek continued once the waitress had left. “I brought it up because I think the new antibiotics are bothering his stomach.” 

“I know. I brought it up to Dr. Marmon at Ize’s appointment yesterday and she said it was just a side effect. I mentioned the mood swings, too.” 

“Also a side effect, I presume?” 

“Of the steroids, yeah. We already knew that from last time, though.” 

Derek nodded and looked out of the window beside their table, sudden somber reflection in the glass catching Stiles’ attention. 

“Hey,” he whispered reassuringly, reaching across the table and placing his hand atop Derek’s. 

“I’m just really worried about him,” Derek sighed; Stiles could tell that his husband wasn’t focusing on the cars and people passing by outside. “Poor kid’s always going through so much.” 

“I’m sorry we didn’t really get a chance to talk about his appointment yesterday. Marmon said his lungs sounded good, though, so she lowered his steroid dose.” Stiles’ voice was hopeful as he smiled reassuringly and squeezed Derek’s hand. “At this rate he could be off of them in another week or two.” 

“That’s good news,” Derek said softly, but Stiles knew he still needed more proof that things were getting better. “What was his oxygen level?” 

“98. She said he seemed upbeat and wasn’t wheezing, so she was very happy.” 

“Good,” Derek nodded as he moved his eyes from the window to his lap. 

“Hey,” Stiles prompted again, hand finally taking Derek’s in his, fingers weaving between that of his husband’s. “What’s going on? You’re shutting down on me, babe.” 

“I’m just tired,” he shrugged. 

“We can go home,” Stiles offered. “Get our food to go.” 

Derek shook his head, eyes still avoiding Stiles’. “Not like that. I’m not exhausted. Not physically, at least. Just…”

“Emotionally?” Stiles asked. 

Derek nodded. 

“Things are getting better, babe. I promise. Isaac’s finally doing well; his x-rays are mostly clear and he’s starting to be his happy little self again. And I know last weekend was a lot to handle, but a lot of good came out of it. Your idea about framing the picture of Isaac and his mother and placing it on his nightstand was a great idea.” 

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I’m still second guessing myself on that one.” 

“He sang to her, Derek. Wednesday morning. I walked in on him singing “You Are My Sunshine”. They must have practiced in school on Tuesday. The picture was in his hands and he was happy.” 

Derek looked up. 

“I know we don’t always get it right, but we try, Der. Isaac knows that,” Stiles assured him. “He knows that we aren’t trying to replace her. He knows that we understand.” 

“He was smiling?” 

“Like she was right there in the room with him.”

“How’d you get him to put the picture down?” Derek asked, knowing that Monday and Tuesday night had been a series of small meltdowns that had made him doubt that the idea was even a healthy one. 

“It was different this time,” Stiles said before going into the details of that morning with Derek. 

“Rise and shine, baby boy,” he’d cooed as he crossed the room, ready to pull Isaac from his bed and get him dressed for the day. 

“Wait,” he’d said, putting up a small hand as if to say stop before grabbing the frame with both hands and giving the glass a kiss. “Morning mama kisses,” he explained happily before he left the frame behind in the bed and climbed into Stiles’ arms. 

A half an hour later, the toddler wouldn’t budge from the downstairs hallway. 

“It’s okay, Isaac. We put a picture of Mama in your school bag, remember?” Stiles asked, the toddler nodding slightly. “Where else is she?” he asked softly as he knelt down in front of his son. 

“My heawt,” he whispered, hand falling against his chest. 

“That’s right. She’s always in there.” 

“I miss Mama,” Isaac started to whimper, eyes filling no matter how hard he tried to stop them from doing so. 

“She misses you too, Ize. I promise that she does.” 

The toddler had just nodded and sniffled, hand staying right on his heart as he tried to maintain his composure. Stiles had to take a deep breath before he could put his own hand over Isaac’s, his own eyes watering. 

“Can Papa’s mommy be in my heawt, too? Like Gamma?” Isaac asked. Stiles could only nod, even as he relayed the story to his husband. 

Derek grabbed both of Stiles’ hands from across the table once he was finished and gave him a small smile, eyes lighting up. “Thank you,” he mouthed before taking a deep breath and letting himself relax. 

x

“So,” Stiles started as he spun the ice in his drink around with his straw, food having just been delivered to their table. He wasn’t sure where to go with the statement, knew they’d spent most of the date so far talking about Isaac; he couldn’t figure out if that was what other married people with children did when they had date night, if what he and Derek were doing was normal. It was just that Isaac was so central to their lives at the moment that it was almost as if he’d forgotten what it was like to just be Derek and Stiles. 

“I wanna take Isaac to a baseball game. Maybe the Angels or Dodgers,” Derek said as he started digging into his food. 

“Or the Mets?” Stiles asked, face lighting up as he squeezed ketchup onto his plate. He’d always had an unwavering love for the blue and orange of the team’s jerseys, even if they were based in New York. 

“You and your Mets,” Derek laughed as he gripped his burger and shook his head. 

“What?!” Stiles smirked, and Derek rolled his eyes. 

“Maybe we can catch a Dodgers-Mets game,” Derek proposed once he’d swallowed his first bite, and Stiles was already coming up with ways to acquire the tickets. 

“Hey, remember how we talked about signing Isaac up for soccer?” Stiles asked. Derek nodded as he took another bite of his burger. “I’m just a little worried that he might not do well with all of the running, especially if his spring allergies are anything like they were in the fall. And you know I’m not one for limiting him, but my dad mentioned police activity league tee-ball and I thought it might be something worth considering.” 

“Aren’t the games for that on Saturday mornings?” 

“Yeah, that’s the only problem,” Stiles said, knowing that Derek usually worked half days on the Saturdays he wasn’t traveling. 

“If Isaac wants to play, it’s more than fine with me. Plus, there’s at least one weekday game, right?” Derek asked, trying to remember from when he was little. 

Stiles nodded. “Two practices and two games a week, starts mid-March and goes until June.” 

“You did your research,” Derek laughed, raising an eyebrow. His voice deepened. “I like that.” 

“I always do my research,” Stiles flirted back. 

“Is that right, Mr. S?” Derek smirked. 

“Actually, you should check my browser history-”

“How’s everything going over here?” the waitress interrupted, seeming slightly flustered as she breezed by their table. 

“Fine, thank you. Can we have the check?” Derek asked, looking at his watch. 

x

“The ad said to put your phone away,” Stiles whispered once the theater darkened. 

“I just want to make sure everything’s okay at home,” Derek said. 

“Lydia texted me a half hour ago and I quote, for the second time, ‘Isaac’s in bed and monitor is on. Everything’s fine. Text you in an hour to keep Derek off your back.’” 

“She hates me,” Derek mumbled. 

“She doesn’t hate you, she’s just being Lydia,” Stiles said as he slid his phone back into his pocket. 

“She thinks I’m overprotective.” 

“Because you are,” Stiles said. “But I understand why, so it’s okay.” 

“She thinks it’s a bad thing.” 

“That’s because Lydia hasn’t seen Isaac in the middle of an attack. She’s never seen him use his inhaler or take a treatment. To her, his asthma’s almost non-existent. That isn’t the Isaac she knows,” Stiles explained. “Don’t worry so much about what Lydia thinks.” 

“Of course I worry about what she thinks, Stiles. She’s home with our son!” Derek’s voice raised just enough to prompt a few ‘shhs’ from moviegoers around them. 

“Tonight is supposed to be about us relaxing and all we’ve managed to do is talk about Isaac,” Stiles sighed. 

“I can’t get him off of my mind,” Derek admitted. 

“Me neither.” 

“Maybe we should just go home. What if-”

“He won’t,” Stiles interrupted, knowing that the toddler was maxed out on medications. “We need tonight, Derek. For us. To keep us sane. We need a break and I know we’ve been really bad at letting ourselves relax so far, but we need to try a little harder here.” 

“I keep thinking that if I push Isaac out of my mind something bad will happen,” Derek explained. 

“Same for me. But I know he’s in great hands with Lydia and that she’ll call us if something isn’t right.” 

“Doesn’t make it any easier,” Derek sighed. 

“Let’s just pretend we’re on our first date,” Stiles smiled and took Derek’s hand in his. “And that I just made a super bold move by holding your hand.” 

“Like you did the first night we went out, when it wasn’t even supposed to be a date?” Derek laughed softly. 

“Exactly,” Stiles smirked. “And we can pretend that Scott and Allison, the two most oblivious people in the world, are sitting next to us in the dark again while we-”

“We don’t have to share the details of our first date with everyone around us,” Derek whispered, laughing into Stiles’ ear. “I like to think of it as our little secret.” 

“So does that mean I can’t do this?” Stiles whispered, hand running from Derek’s knee up to his groin. Derek jumped a bit in his seat, the sensation too strong to ignore. 

“If we were the only two here I’d jump you like we did that time on vacation, when we went to that eleven o’clock movie, but there’s like a million people in here-”

“We can make bets on how long we can make it through the movie before running out to the Camaro,” Stiles teased, nose nuzzling behind Derek’s ear. 

“Ten bucks says an hour,” Derek murmured as he let Stiles trail kisses along his jawline. 

“Just ten bucks? Geez, it’s not like we’re married or anything,” Stiles laughed, and they were met with a few more ‘shhs’. 

“Fifty bucks, one hour. And I’ll do that thing you like,” Derek offered, putty in his husband’s hands. 

“You’ll do the thing I like anyway,” Stiles toyed. 

“What’s your wager?” 

“A hundred, whole movie.” 

“So you don’t want sex…”

“Oh, I want sex,” Stiles said slyly. “I just want to see how long you can handle me before you drag me out to the car by my belt loops.” 

“Who said I’d be doing the dragging?” 

“Guess we’ll have to see,” Stiles winked just as the movie started. 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope that everyone is enjoying their summer and this fic! Thanks for reading and replying. Again, I'd like to thank my beta reader Casey for all of her time and feedback. I know that this chapter is short, but I have a LOT coming that is finally coming together thanks to her wonderful skills. 
> 
> Please comment/review/leave kudos! It really means a lot to me!

“Someone had a little fun tonight,” Lydia commented with a smirk as Stiles pulled his wallet out to pay her, her hand running playfully through his messy brown hair. 

“Maybe more than a little,” Stiles laughed, top teeth pulling across his bottom lip. He flipped through a small stack of bills and handed them over to Lydia. 

“Keep it,” she insisted, pushing Stiles’ hand back. 

“You just babysat and put to bed a toddler hyped up on breathing meds and prednisone. There’s no way I’m letting you walk out of here with anything less than fifty bucks,” Stiles asserted, though it was more jovial than anything else. 

“It’s fine,” she shrugged, adjusting her purse on her shoulder. “Besides, it’s obvious that you and Derek spent a good portion of your evening worrying about Isaac.” 

Stiles tilted his head sideways for a moment, bills frozen in his hand, eyes narrowing as he wondered how she knew. 

“Derek barely said goodnight to me before racing upstairs to check on the little guy,” she smiled, voice soft. “I do a lot of babysitting; I know these things.” 

“And I know that you deserve to get paid for your time, even if Isaac was a sweet little angel.” 

“Which he was,” Lydia assured him. “So keep your money. We’ll do lunch, soon. Your treat.” She gave Stiles a peck on his cheek and a little wave before placing her hand on the doorknob. 

“Lydia,” Stiles exhaled, fatigue hitting him as he let his hand with the money in it drop to his side. “Please? Just take it?” 

“Later, Stilinski,” she quipped as she flipped her hair and rolled her eyes, sound of her heels padding down the steps distinct in Stiles’ mind as he closed and locked the front door. 

x

“I really wish I was up for round two but I’m so exhausted that I’m not sure I can even get myself undressed,” Stiles mumbled from his place atop the comforter, belly down and feet hanging off of the bed. 

“That’s my job anyway,” Derek whispered as he pushed half of his hand beneath the waistline of Stiles’ jeans. 

“Mmm. Maybe I can just lay here and you can have your way with me.” 

“That’s more like it,” Derek said, voice deepening. 

A single cough came through the baby monitor, the two pausing and listening for a moment more before continuing. 

“Are you gonna do that thing I like?” Stiles mumbled sleepily. “I know you were too busy with other stuff in the Camaro-”

Isaac’s cough picked up and continued on. Derek pulled his hand away from Stiles’ pants with a sigh. “I’ll go,” he offered, giving his husband a quick peck before heading down the hallway. 

x

“False alarm,” Derek explained when he returned nearly five minutes later, relieved that the toddler was just suffering from a case of dry mouth, throat included, no doubt a side effect of one of his medications. 

“I figured,” Stiles said, knowing that Isaac hadn’t sounded congested or wheezy. 

“Where were we?” Derek whispered as he put his hand back between Stiles’ pale skin and the waistband of his boxers. 

“I might fall asleep on you,” Stiles warned, welcoming Derek’s hand by turning over onto his side. 

“I think I can change that,” Derek whispered into his ear before he pulled at the ends of Stiles’ jeans and boxers and inched them down his legs. 

x

“I’m afraid to leave you again.” Derek’s voice was low as Stiles took the ramp from the Long Beach Freeway to the airport, cold January rain making it difficult to see the moon from the passenger seat. He could hear Isaac’s wheezy but even snores as he slept in his car seat, sound comforting in a way that he couldn’t explain. 

“I can handle Isaac for two days on my own,” Stiles assured him. 

“It’s not Isaac I’m worried about.” 

The sentence threw Stiles off for a moment; all he could do was lean his left elbow against the window and sigh. He knew Derek was referring to his mid-night attacks, a combination of anxiety and asthma that would wake him from the deepest sleep and leave him feeling like an elephant was sitting on his chest. Derek wasn’t stupid; he knew Stiles was sneaking in treatments while he was at the gym or running errands, had seen the open plastic nebules that had held the medicine at the bottom of the garbage can in their bathroom. 

“I haven’t even needed you the past few times it’s happened,” Stiles reasoned. “It’s gotten better.” 

“Because you’ve been doing treatments behind my back.” 

“That’s,” he started, voice filling with sarcasm and wit to try and override the truth in Derek’s statement, but all he could finish with was a bland, “…not entirely false.” 

“The more I travel, the harder all of this gets. Leaving you and Isaac, trying not to worry that something will happen and I won’t be home to fix it? That is going to occupy me until I walk in the door on Thursday. I just…need you to keep your meds up, okay? At least until I get back.” 

“Sure,” Stiles mumbled, but it wasn’t reassuring enough for Derek. 

“I really don’t want that 4AM phone call, Stiles. Please. Just do this, for me?” 

“I haven’t even been to the hospital for my asthma since we first started dating,” Stiles explained, starting to get annoyed that this was still the topic of conversation. “I think you’re letting your imagination run wild and it’s making you anxious.” 

Derek wanted to reply with a statement about how he didn’t need an imagination to remember the painful gasps and blue tint on Stiles’ lips that day he found out about Stiles’ asthma or how he’d needed two back-to-back breathing treatments at Isaac’s bedside in the PICU to get rid of his wheezing, but he held back because he didn’t want to fight before he got on the five-hour plane ride to New York. “I’m not getting out of this car until you promise me,” he stated sternly once Stiles had pulled up to the Kiss and Fly lane. 

“Say hi to Scott, Allison, and Tessa for me,” he said as he put the car in park and popped the trunk so that Derek could get his suitcase. 

“Stiles,” Derek warned, voice rising, hand resting on the door handle. 

“Text me when you land.” 

“Not leaving until you give me your word.” 

“Fine,” Stiles said, lifting his hand like he was giving an oath. “I solemnly swear to keep up my meds. Happy?” 

Derek didn’t like Stiles’ sarcastic tone, but a glance at his watch told him he’d have to take it. 

“I love you,” he said before kissing Stiles and leaning back to give one to Isaac, too. Seconds later he was out of the car, pulling his suitcase from the trunk in the rain and wheeling it into the terminal. 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never would have imagined this story ending up as long and loved as it has! Thank you to everyone who has kept up with it along the way. I read every review/comment and smile when I see your kudos. And thanks to Casey, as always, for spending so much time reading and editing the rough drafts that I send her.
> 
> Also, is anyone interested in making an art piece for this story? Even just one drawing/edit that I could post as the "cover"? I think it would be a really cool collaboration to work together! Message me/comment if you are interested! :)

Derek killed time before his flight out of New York by passing through the paperback section of the nearest in-terminal Hudson News, realizing early on in his search that he’d read most of what was good on the shelves before deciding the same about the magazines. He finally focused in on the picture books, smiling as he eyed some of Isaac’s favorites. It wasn’t until _Peter, the Knight with Asthma_ jumped out at him, though, that he picked one up off of the shelf. The cover was bright and featured a young child dressed in shining armor battling a green dragon from his bedroom. Derek couldn’t help but laugh and open the book, thinking of Isaac as he devoured each page. He pushed it towards the cashier and pulled out his wallet before he could stop himself. 

It wouldn’t fit in his carry on; he needed to get a smaller laptop if he was going to keep traveling like this. So he held it under his arm as he boarded and slid it into the seat pocket in front of him. 

“Kid has asthma?” the woman beside him asked and he didn’t have to look over to know she was of the business type. The ones that traveled too often to have a relationship wherever home was, always dressed for a meeting, able to pack their entire life into the largest carry-on suitcases allowed. 

“Yeah,” Derek chuckled as he made eye contact, something he would have never done if she hadn’t asked such a question. 

“How old?” 

“Three,” he explained as he pulled his phone out to text Stiles that he’d be taking off soon. 

“Is that him?” she asked with a smile as she pointed to his home screen, Isaac’s blonde hair and blue eyes radiant in the dim cabin light. 

“That’s my Isaac,” he found himself saying, surprised that he was letting the conversation continue. 

“He must’ve gotten your wife’s eyes.” 

“He’s adopted, actually. My husband and I-”

“Oh,” she giggled nervously, catching on. “I’m…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…oh, God…”

“It’s fine, happens all the time,” Derek smiled, fumbling with his ear buds, not really wanting to put them in just yet. 

“My daughter loves that book,” she finally mentioned, pulling out her own ear buds but keeping them in her lap as she unlocked her phone and showed Derek a picture of her seven-year-old child. “Got us through some tough flares.” 

“We’ve had a really hard time getting his asthma under control lately so I thought it might cheer him up. Make him feel a little more powerful.” 

“Round-the-clock breathing treatments?” she asked, and Derek felt guilty for misjudging her just a few minutes beforehand; had she thought the same about him? 

“And steroids.” 

She nodded and gave an understanding whistle. “The mood swings are a killer.” 

“Tell me about it,” he laughed, suddenly thankful that someone else outside of their tiny family understood. 

“I hope your little boy feels better soon,” she smiled before turning her music on and tuning everything out. Derek gave a small smile and thank you before doing the same, reading Stiles’ text _miss & love you_. see you soon before placing his phone on Airplane mode and closing his eyes. 

x

Derek slid into the passenger seat and paused after a quick kiss at the slight strain in his husband’s breathing. 

“Everything okay?” Stiles asked at Derek’s reaction as he checked his mirrors, blinker on so that they could merge into traffic. 

“Yeah, just...missed you is all,” Derek smiled, looking to the back seat as a means of hiding his concern. “Where’s Isaac?” 

“Home with my dad. I had to dose him with Benadryl and I figured he’d be less miserable in bed than the car seat.” 

“He had a reaction?” 

“Just hives around his mouth. They went down pretty quickly and I gave him his bedtime treatment early just to be safe,” Stiles explained as he got on the freeway. 

“What’d he eat?” was all Derek asked, but Stiles knew there was a tone-shift coming. 

“That’s the thing,” Stiles sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I sent him into school with a safe lunch and snacks, so I don’t know.” 

“He was okay when you left?” 

“Wouldn’t have driven to get you if he wasn’t.” 

There was a pause, and Stiles imagined Derek grinding his teeth before he said, “You waited to tell me.” 

“Because you were on the plane when it happened and I didn’t want the first text you saw to be that. Especially now that he’s fine.” Stiles tried to keep his voice down, but he was tired and dealing with overprotective-Derek was not on his list of things he wanted to do at that very moment. 

“Was he scared?” Derek’s voice was low as he looked out the window. Stiles took an easy breath, hoping they could keep the conversation even for the rest of the ride. 

“No,” Stiles said, shaking his head. “He wasn’t even wheezing this time. I just happened to notice the hives on our way home.” 

“So he ate something at school?” 

“Probably, yeah.” 

“Or it’s a new allergy to something that’s usually safe?” 

“Could be.” 

“Well, no need to be alarmed or anything,” Derek grumbled, true feelings about the situation finally coming out. “It’s not like our son has life threatening food allergies.” 

“What do you want me to say, Derek?!” Stiles asked, suddenly exasperated. “ _I don’t know what he ate._ I tried asking every variation of “did you share food with friends” and “was there a birthday party” but he kept saying ‘no’.” He rubbed his face once and took the deepest breath he could, exhale a long, drawn-out sigh. “And then he was really tired and cranky from the medicine and Dr. Marmon suggested that I give him a higher dose of steroids to stave off any kind of relapse reaction so I figured I’d just let him rest.” 

“You called Dr. Marmon?” 

“She gave us her cell number at one of our last appointments and I got nervous for like a quick second, okay?” 

Derek went to respond but closed his mouth and studied Stiles for a moment when he heard one, slight hitch in his husband’s breathing, noticing for the first time that night that his eyelids were hanging heavily. He was wheezing too, but it was faint, even to Derek’s ears, and he suddenly imagined Stiles glancing back at Isaac through the rearview mirror earlier that day only to detect red, raised hives on the toddler’s face. 

His stomach had probably dropped as he went through the mental checklist: No wheezing, lips aren’t swelling, hives are centralized, doesn’t seem irritated. He hadn’t been there, of course, but he knew that Stiles had probably thought of him next, debating what he’d tell his husband and when. The withholding of information would cause an argument or at least warrant the raising of voices until they walked in the front door and pretended that everything was fine. He heard the wheezing again, just a bit louder this time as Stiles switched lanes, and Derek realized that he had probably been so busy keeping Isaac in his peripherals and making sure that he was hive-free that he’d forgotten to take a puff from his own inhaler. 

“Hey, I didn’t mean to get on your case,” Derek tried, voice soft, hand sliding over Stiles’ free one atop his lap as a means of apologizing. “You look exhausted. Why don’t you pull over and let me drive.” 

“I’m good,” Stiles yawned. 

“Babe.” His tone said it all, attention so focused on getting home to Isaac after they switched places that he didn’t realize Stiles had fallen asleep with his head against the window until they pulled in the driveway. 

x

Derek was alternating between the jet and soaker settings of the hose that first nice Saturday in February, watching the suds slide down the sides of his black Camaro when he thought he heard Isaac’s voice. His grip on the sprayer loosened as he looked first towards the side gate and then at the front door. 

“Papa!” Isaac yelled worriedly, body sandwiched between the metal door and frame. “Daddy sick!” 

The three-year-old was in Derek’s arms before the hose could even hit the pavement. He thought he’d heard the lawn mower sputter out a few minutes earlier, but he’d figured it’d just meant Stiles had finished the backyard and was cleaning up. 

Instead, Stiles sat hunched over himself on the back steps of their wooden deck, half of the backyard still not mowed, deep wheezes audible each time his shoulders lifted and fell. Derek put Isaac down and pulled out the spare inhaler he’d grabbed from the kitchen, device shaken and cap removed by the time he handed it to Stiles. The first puff was barely inhaled before it caused a coughing fit that racked his husband’s body, and Derek squatted beside him quickly to lift him into a better sitting position. 

“Easy,” Derek soothed as he gently rubbed circles against Stiles’ back, coaxing his husband to take a second puff as he took a seat beside him. Stiles continued to shoulder-breathe once the next puff was inhaled, his body straining as he tried to bring the plastic to his lips again. Derek helped him hold the inhaler in place and kept his back straight as Stiles pressed down on the canister, third dose finally successful, his wheezing beginning to lessen. 

“Daddy?” Isaac asked tearfully from behind them. 

“He’s okay, baby. Just give him a minute,” Derek assured their son as he motioned for him to come over and sit in his lap while they waited. Stiles began to cough again, medicine having opened up his lungs enough to leave them feeling sensitive. 

“Does he have to go to the hosital?” Isaac sniffled from his place in Derek’s arms. 

“N-no,” Stiles wheezed, eyes pleading with Derek’s before his lungs started to spasm again and another coughing fit started up. 

“We’ll see in a few minutes,” Derek decided, fingertips trailing Stiles’ back in circles again as he tried to catch his breath. 

x

“Awe you gonna wear the fishy mask again, Daddy?” Isaac asked from Derek’s lap as he prepped the nebulizer on the living room couch beside Stiles, who was leaning with his forearms on his thighs, breathing still quick and shallow. Derek raised an eyebrow as he made eye contact with Stiles. 

“I…I had an attack…while you were in New York,” Stiles sighed wheezily, defeat audible in his voice. “My neb was…on the top shelf of the closet and…Isaac was the only one home, so…”

“I helpded Daddy feel bettew,” Isaac beamed, smiling wide as Derek connected the tubing from the machine to the mouthpiece. 

“You did a great job, baby,” Stiles smiled tiredly, hand on his chest as he coughed. 

“Why don’t you go up to our room and watch some Disney, Ize,” Derek suggested, knowing it was one of the toddler’s favorite channels. “Give Daddy some time to do a treatment and feel a little better before dinner. What do you think?” 

“No hosital?” Isaac asked worriedly. 

“Nope. Daddy just needs some more medicine and rest,” Derek smiled, though Isaac didn’t seem so sure. 

“Go ahead, honey,” Stiles said weakly, the toddler finally smiling and giving his father a quick hug before racing up the stairs. “At least he’s…breathing better.” 

“You will be too once I get this treatment started,” Derek promised as he flipped the switch and handed the misting mouthpiece over to Stiles, who happily accepted it. 

“What’re you doing?” he asked after a few good breaths of the medication, watching as Derek took his hand and concentrated with his eyes tightly shut. 

“Extracting some of your pain.” 

“M’okay,” Stiles tried to reason, but Derek shook his head and continued his work. Stiles suddenly thought back to that August night in the hospital, how Derek’s hand had refused to leave his and how in the day following, Derek had dark bags under his eyes that he’d only seen once since on the night Isaac was admitted to the PICU. 

“You’ve done this for me…and Ize…before,” Stiles said as he felt the grip on his airways loosen significantly. “Haven’t you?” 

“More times than you know.” 

“I shouldn’t…have kept…this from you.” 

“I knew you weren’t okay when I left for New York,” Derek admitted, and Stiles’ eyebrows knitted together questioningly as he continued to breathe in the medicated mist. “I can sense when you and Ize aren’t feeling well,” he explained as he moved on to rubbing Stiles’ shoulders. “But when I’m exhausted things get…hazy. I even…I used to be able to hear your heartbeat clear across town when we lived in Beacon Hills. And your wheezing, but I didn’t know…didn’t put the clues together until you had that attack.” 

“You can hear my heartbeat?” Stiles whispered. 

“Anyone in the pack’s, but yours has always been the strongest,” Derek shrugged. 

“So you knew, back then. That you…”

“Had feelings?” 

“Yeah.” 

“No. I thought you were annoying,” Derek laughed. “Smart, yes. Witty and brave and selfless, as least when it came to anything that concerned Scott. But soul mate? No.” 

Stiles’ shoulders dropped an inch in disappointment, to which Derek responded with. “Not sure how but you ended up stealing my heart, so…”

“Oh, so this is all…my fault?” Stiles laughed softly before going back to taking deep breaths of the medicine. 

“Yep. And making you put up with me is my form of revenge,” Derek smiled. “What was it that you guys used to call me?” 

“Sourwolf,” Stiles wheezed. 

“I don’t still make that face, do I? 

“The…getting-real-tired-of-your-shit-Scott face?” 

“Yeah.” 

Although it’s…become more of a getting-real-tired-of-your-shit-Stiles glare…now that Scott’s 3,000 miles away.” Stiles took a moment to take more inhales of the medication before asking, “How’s he doing, by the way?” 

“I’ll tell you if you stop talking and do your treatment.” 

“Agreed,” Stiles said before he leaned back with the mouthpiece secured between his lips, listening with his eyes closed as Derek filled him in on Scott’s veterinary practice and Allison’s work on a new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

“He misses you,” Derek stated, to which Stiles just nodded as a means of saying ‘me too’. “And said he’s sorry he hasn’t really been around lately.” 

Stiles was too busy breathing in the medicine to respond verbally, but Derek continued as if his husband had made a remark. 

“Digitally. Said he’s been trying to decrease his dependence on technology. Whatever that means.” Derek shook his head and leaned back beside Stiles with a sigh. “I think it’s just a load of bull, but then again you probably do, too.” He felt Stiles lean his body against his on a small angle, deep, even breaths audible as the air moved through the plastic mouthpiece and Stiles’ lungs, eyes still closed. They sat like that until there was no more medicine in the cup, sputtering noises coming from the machine. Derek switched it off with his toe and pulled the mouthpiece from Stiles’ tired grip, tossing it on the table so that neither of them had to really move.

He thought that Stiles was sleeping when he heard a breathy _thank you_ and felt warm lips meet his left cheek. 

“Of course,” Derek replied, whispering also, letting himself fall asleep now that he knew Stiles could breathe. 


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has kept up with TBH along the way! I read every review/comment and kudos. And thanks to Casey, as always, for spending so much time reading and editing the rough drafts that I send her. She truly is the best!
> 
> Is anyone interested in making an art piece for this story? Even just one drawing/edit that I could post as the "cover"? I think it would be a really cool collaboration to work together! Comment if you are interested! :)

“When were you planning on telling me about your promotion?” Stiles asked quietly from his place in the doorway, right shoulder leaning against the molding, arms crossed against his chest. Derek continued to rinse dishes in the sink as if he hadn’t heard, face expressionless while he moved them over, one by one, into the open dishwasher. 

“How was I supposed to tell you something like that when you’re up half the night having some kind of anxiety-asthma attack about losing your job?” he finally asked once the sink was empty of dishes and pots. 

“What, did you think I wouldn’t find out?” Stiles moved from the doorway into the kitchen, arms staying put as he got closer to Derek. “And I haven’t had an attack in like a week.” 

More like four days, Derek thought as he slid silverware into the rack of the dishwasher door. “Who told you?” 

“I went to pay some of Isaac’s hospital bills and I saw your direct deposit on the Chase account,” Stiles sighed, letting his arms drop. “It was higher than usual. _Much_ higher.” 

Derek didn’t want to look at Stiles, knew the regret surging through his own body was evident in the way his teeth were grinding together, jaw muscles tight. The sour taste in his mouth continued as he put a pouch of dish soap into the door, which he nearly broke as he slammed it shut against its frame. He started a cycle and leaned his palms against the countertop above the machine with a guilty sigh. 

“I’m happy for you, babe. Really, I am.” Stiles inched closer and Derek could hear his husband smiling as he spoke, but it only made him feel like one of his husband’s first graders. Like he needed consoling after getting frustrated over something small. “I just don’t like that you kept it from me.” Derek felt arms slide around his waist from behind, but he pulled away towards the stove, the sudden contact making him tense up. “Sorry,” Stiles sighed once they separated. “I, uh, thought that maybe that would help things, but I guess I misread the situation.” 

Derek closed his eyes and took a deep breath, hating that he’d pushed Stiles away before he could even stop himself. It was a reflex, one that he’d acquired after the fire when policemen and social workers had continually wrapped their fingers around his wrist or shoulder as a means of comfort. This isn’t even a big deal anymore, he thought to himself. He knows now and he’s not even mad. Weight’s been lifted. Move on. 

But all he could focus on at that very moment was his blatant stupidity; Stiles accessed that particular checking account now and then to pay bills and withdraw money for groceries and gas. Hell, the username and password for web access was taped to the side of the filing cabinet beside Stiles’ desk in his office. Had he really thought Stiles wouldn’t find out? Or had he just been trying to buy time, enough of it until things evened out and they knew where Stiles would be working in the fall? He then had a third thought: Maybe he’d wanted Stiles to bring it up because he knew it would be hard. Too hard, actually, to admit on his own. 

Just like it was too hard to admit how afraid he’d been when Isaac had to go on the ventilator, something he knew nothing about at the time, and Stiles was falling apart in his arms, having an asthma attack of his own. He knew Stiles thought that his exhaustion from their week at the hospital was from anxiety, but Derek knew that fear was a better word for what he was experiencing. He’d never felt so paralyzed, physically and emotionally, at least since the fire, until that night. And he hadn’t felt a reprieve, been able to take a single full breath, since. 

“I don’t want to fight, Der,” Stiles whispered. “I just want to talk. We need to start doing more of that.” 

The pitter-patter of Isaac’s footsteps into the kitchen for “more juice, pwease” interrupted them, Stiles too busy finding the jug of grape juice in the fridge and filling Isaac’s empty sippy cup to notice that he was tugging at Derek pant leg. 

“Hey, Ize,” Derek said softly, taking a deep breath to combat the urge to pull away from the toddler’s grip. 

“Awe you sad, Papa?” 

“No, baby. Just tired,” he explained, faking a smile as he lifted Isaac into his arms. 

“I tired, too,” Isaac sighed sweetly, head falling on his papa’s shoulder. 

“Last juice before bed,” Stiles said, handing the toddler his cup back. He took a few sips while in Derek’s arms, pausing only to cough once. “When you’re done we’ll get your PJs on and do your treatment.” 

“I want Papa to read the dragon book!” Isaac said, looking up at Derek with wide, happy eyes. 

“Again?” Stiles asked, knowing they’d read it at least a million times in the two weeks they’d had it; he was pretty sure he could recite it from memory if necessary. 

The toddler nodded enthusiastically. “Pwease?” he begged, Derek’s heart melting at the toddler’s pout. 

“Go and get your pajamas on. I’ll be there in a few,” Derek said as he let Isaac down, the toddler handing Stiles his cup with a quick cheer before running for the stairs. 

“He’s breathing better,” Stiles said, filling the silence between them as he put the cup in the sink. Derek just nodded, leaning back against the counter as he crossed his arms. “You probably sensed that before me, though.” 

He had. It was getting easier to pick up on changes in breathing patterns and what different coughs and wheezes meant. He could even put the nebulizer together half-asleep, he realized, after Stiles suffered a mid-night attack that wouldn’t let up with just his inhaler. It didn’t make him feel any better about always being away, though, and knowing that those trips were probably going to increase in the near future weren’t helping. It was going to get harder and he wasn’t sure he could handle it for much longer, especially when his family seemed to get sicker when he wasn’t there. 

Because to Derek, everything had been feeling “too hard” lately. Even with Isaac running around the house, breathing free and easy in a way Derek had never sensed before, and Stiles’ attacks lessening in frequency, he felt empty. Like he was running on nothing but exhaustion and coffee and he was going to crash and burn soon. 

Stiles inched closer, a second attempt at making contact, Derek’s body suddenly on alert. He skirted Stiles and walked out of the kitchen before his husband could even place one finger. 

“Avoidance,” Derek muttered to himself as he climbed the stairs to do Isaac’s treatment. That was always one thing Derek was good at, and he hated himself more than anything for it. 

x

“You thought I’d say ‘no’,” Stiles whispered as he brushed his fingers through Isaac’s hair, the two on either side of the sleeping toddler in his DreamLite lit room later that night. 

“I didn’t want to have to ask,” Derek replied, tone hushed. 

“You’ve wanted this promotion for two years, Der. I wouldn’t have let you walk away from something that you-”

“Wanted. _Past tense_.” 

“But you took it anyway, so you _did_ still want it.” 

“I took it to pay for Isaac’s hospital bills and keep us afloat, just in case.” 

“You don’t always have to be the hero, you know,” Stiles whispered. 

“That’s not why I do the things I do.” 

“I know,” Stiles said, and Derek could hear the smile in his voice. “And that’s why I love you.” 

“I won’t be home as much,” Derek sighed before kissing Isaac’s forehead and lifting himself slowly from the bed. “I shouldn’t have taken it,” he said, shaking his head. Stiles got up and followed Derek through the doorway, hand grabbing his just as they were about to enter their bedroom. 

Stiles had expected to feel his husband’s fingers slip past his as he pulled away, but instead he felt a squeeze, Derek turning to face him, head down, in the dark. 

“It’s okay to do things for yourself,” Stiles promised, taking his other hand. 

“I didn’t do it for me, though. Things are different now…with Isaac…and I just thought that if anyone was going to have to take the burden of you losing your job it would have to be me.” Derek’s voice faded as he finished his sentence, hands still in Stiles’. “I don’t mind working if it makes things easier for you and Ize.” 

“Babe,” Stiles sighed, Derek placing one finger softly on his husband’s lips to quiet him before he could continue. 

“I was going to tell you when things settled down,” he admitted. “I was…scared. _Terrified_ , really, that if I told you it might make things worse.” 

Like my attacks, Stiles wanted to say, but Derek’s finger was still on his lips. 

“I wanted to protect you,” Derek explained, pulling Stiles close against him. “You _and_ Isaac,” he whispered before he replaced his finger with his lips, letting them part from Stiles’ only to add, “My pack.” 


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay in getting this chapter up. Sometimes it's hard to write the "in-between" stuff; this was definitely one of those times. Thanks, as always, to my alpha reader Casey; this story would not be what it is without you.
> 
> There is a point in this chapter where Isaac reveals an experience from his past that might make some readers uncomfortable. It's during the scene when Derek and Stiles visit Dr. Galler's office without Isaac. Please be assured that the situation is ficticious and that I included it because it helps propel the story forward.
> 
> Thanks, everyone, for reading and sticking with me through chapter 18. I'm at around 40,000 words right now, and that's pretty neat. I have more coming and then possibly a sequel, so subscribe/favorite/follow/review!

“How was it?” Derek asked nervously as he took a sleepy Isaac from Lydia’s arms and let her into the house. The Valentine’s Day tea had been on his mind for the past two days, scenarios ranging from peanut-induced anaphylaxis to high-pitched emotional meltdowns playing continuously in his head. It was nice to actually have his son calm and in his arms, but he knew he wouldn’t feel completely relieved until he was sure things had gone smoothly.

“He pretty much fell into a sugar coma in the car,” Lydia explained, closing the door behind her and setting Isaac’s backpack on the stairs. “Other than that, fine.” 

“You better not be lying to me.” 

“What, or you’ll rip my throat out with your teeth?” Lydia asked with a smirk and raised eyebrows. 

“You talk to Stiles too much,” he mumbled. 

“And you worry too much,” she countered. 

Derek rolled his eyes as he repositioned Isaac on his hip, the toddler yawning before returning to his sleepy state on his father’s shoulder. “Keep the extra car seat; we might need you to take Isaac to a few t-ball practices in the upcoming weeks.” 

“So Stiles said ‘yes’ to the PTA thing?” 

“Yeah, he figures it’ll give him an edge or something in case the district decides to move people around,” Derek explained softly, though he figured Stiles had already clued her in. “I don’t really know all of the details since it’s one of Stiles’ infamous master plans. But I do know that it means some afternoons and maybe a Saturday or two he won’t be around to get Isaac to t-ball.” 

“And with your promotion…,” she trailed. 

“Yeah,” he sighed, embarrassed to be explaining this to Lydia. Just because his husband was close with her didn’t mean Derek was, and part of him wished Stiles was home to have this conversation with her instead. “Not exactly the best of situations, but we’ll make it work.” 

“It’s totally fine,” she smiled, rubbing the toddler’s forearm gently. 

“You’re sure he was okay?” Derek asked, the list of _what ifs_ that had his mind racing all day starting up again. 

“Happy as a clam,” she assured him. “We ate, they sang, the teacher read a book.” 

“No tears?” 

“Not a single tear was shed by Isaac,” Lydia promised. “But I may have let one or two go in the car.” 

Confused, Derek looked for Lydia to explain. 

“On the way home, before he passed out, he said I was the best Godmommy ever.” 

“Stiles,” Derek smiled, nodding. “He didn’t tell you, did he?” 

“Would have been nice,” she joked. 

“Well, it was a joint decision,” he assured her, to which she smiled in understanding. “And thanks for today. It meant a lot to all of us.” 

“Of course. I have to head out, but tell Stiles to text me the dates you need me to babysit.” 

“Will do.” 

“Oh, and what time did you need me on Saturday?” 

“We had to cancel our date; Stiles has some father-daughter dance thing through the PTA at the elementary school that night,” Derek explained. “But we still need you for our appointment with Dr. Galler at six on Wednesday if you’re free.” 

“Yup. Already wrote it on my calendar.” 

“Great. Say bye-bye to Aunt Lydia,” Derek coaxed, Isaac blinking his eyes sleepily as he woke. 

“Wove you Aunt Lyddie,” he smiled tiredly. 

“Love you too, kiddo. See you soon,” she said before kissing him on the forehead and giving him a little tickle of his tummy, the toddler squirming and laughing in response.

x

“I let Isaac play with the house and people last week,” Dr. Galler explained as she pointed to a plastic Little Tikes house atop a small wooden table in the corner of her office. “He was distracted by it for the first half of the session, so I decided to see where it would take us.” 

She pulled a recorder from a side drawer and placed it in the center of her desk, pushing the notes concerning Isaac’s progress that they’d already discussed aside. “I know that you’re both eager to listen to what Isaac had to say; I just want to warn you that some of what he discusses on this particular tape is beyond the scope of what children his age typically express.” She paused and pulled her lips inward as she thought about her word choices before continuing. “It’s unusual for a child to play out actual traumatic experiences like Isaac did during this particular session. I know that a child opening up once they feel safe enough seems like something that would happen often during play therapy, but in my experience that isn’t the case. As always, if you think you might be too uncomfortable listening, we can go over some of the details and talk about where I think we should go next instead.” 

“I think we’d like to listen,” Derek said, speaking for Stiles before he looked over and watched him agree with a nod. He felt Stiles’ hand grip his on the arm of his chair as Dr. Galler pushed the play button. 

“Can you tell me a little bit about your game?” 

“I’m playing house,” Isaac stated as he rummaged through what sounded like a bin full of plastic toys. “This is the mama and dad,” Isaac finally explained after a few seconds. 

“Who else in the family?” 

“There’s a baby,” he said, still digging until he announced, “Hewe he is!” 

“How old is the baby, Isaac?”

“Two. His birfday is soon.” 

“I see the mama and the dad in the kitchen,” she noted, using the toddler’s language. “Where’s the baby?” 

Dr. Galler used the few seconds of silence between her question and Isaac’s answer to add, “Just for reference, he had the figure on the carpet beneath the table with the house and I wanted him to explain his actions.” Derek and Stiles nodded in understanding. 

“He’s in the basement,” Isaac explained a moment later. 

“Why is the baby in the basement?” Dr. Galler asked as if there was nothing unusual about the situation. 

“’Cause he was bad,” Isaac explained, voice wavering as he began to realize that he might get in trouble for having placed the baby there. 

“What did the baby do that was bad?”

“He was…,” Isaac trailed, anxiety audible in his voice before a good fifteen seconds of silence. Stiles expected Dr. Galler to intervene verbally, but she didn’t. “He was…cwying,” he started again, and Stiles imagined the therapist nodding for him to continue. “For his Mama…‘cause he was wheezin’ and it wokeded the dad up.” 

“Was the baby sick?” 

“Mmhm,” Isaac hummed quietly. “He was havin’ a attack and he was scared ‘cause he couldn’t breave.”

“Who put the baby in the basement, Isaac?” 

Stiles had to take a deep breath even though he knew the answer; how Dr. Galler was able to keep her tone so even and welcome when she could read the pain in what her patients were saying was something he wasn’t sure he’d ever understand. 

“The dad,” Isaac whispered uncomfortably. 

“What was Mama-?”

“I don’t know,” Isaac answered nervously, cutting off Dr. Galler as he second-guessed his game choice. 

“Okay,” she said, Derek able to hear a comforting smile through her voice. “You know that you can’t get in trouble for anything that you say during our time together, right Isaac?” 

“Pwomise?” 

“Yes, and you’re just playing house, remember?” 

“Mmhm.” 

“Can you tell me happened after the baby was put in the basement?” she asked softly. 

“He cwied for Mama ‘cause it was dark…but she didn’t come.” 

“Why didn’t Mama come, Isaac?” 

“’Cause the dad…h-he…she couldn’t get to the baby.” 

“Why not?” 

“The door was lockeded,” Isaac stated. “He hides the key from Mama.” 

Stiles took another deep, shaky breath and put a hand up. “Stop,” he stated, standing up and rushing for the door. “I’m sorry, I just…I… _can’t_.” The therapist paused the tape while Derek rose from his chair. 

“Hey,” Derek whispered, coming up behind Stiles and quickly pulling him into his arms. 

“He couldn’t _breathe_ ,” Stiles sobbed suddenly, unaware that the tears had even been waiting to fall, each hand squeezing a handful of Derek’s t-shirt as he pressed his face against his husband’s chest. He sniffled as Derek rocked him. “And he was down there all alone, in the dark!” 

“It’s okay, Stiles. He’s not-”

“No! It’s…it’s not _okay_ , Derek!” Stiles yelled. “I knew that things were bad because I had read the police reports, but…w-what would have happened if he was having an allergic reaction or started having apnea spells because the attack was so bad?” Derek could hear his husband wheezing in his arms, but the rumble was low and he knew Dr. Galler couldn’t hear it yet. 

“Stiles-”

“Don’t you remember what it was like in the beginning?” he sniffled, not giving Derek time to respond. “How tight his lungs always sounded? How he was so afraid to tell us when he didn’t feel well? How could anyone- _why_ would anyone-”

“He was mentally-”

“I have to throw up,” he interrupted, pulling away from Derek and putting his hands on his knees as he took quick breaths. “Need a…garbage…”

“You’re having an anxiety attack, babe. Let’s go sit down-”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. 

“Isaac’s okay now. He’s safe with us.” 

Stiles just closed his eyes and shook his head as his anxiety grew, breaths becoming erratic as the image of a basement door slamming closed filled his mind, darkness locked behind it mixing with the desperate cries of a child. 

“I’m gonna go…to the bathroom. Just give me…five minutes,” Stiles said as he put a hand up. “I’m okay, I just…need to calm down.” Derek nodded, knowing his husband had been trying to handle his panic attacks on his own; he’d be listening, of course, from across the hall, ready to bang the door down if need be. 

“Where’s Galler?” Stiles asked once he opened up the bathroom door and found Derek waiting outside; he’d locked himself inside for nearly fifteen minutes while he willed himself to calm down, voice husky from his inhaler. 

“She had another patient, but she said if we want to call her later or make another appointment that she wouldn’t charge,” Derek said softly, looking Stiles over to make sure he seemed okay. 

“I’m not really worried about the money,” Stiles sighed, rubbing his face. “I just don’t want her to think I’m emotionally unstable.” 

“I don’t think that your reaction to Isaac’s session was unreasonable,” Derek offered as they left the office. “And neither does Dr. Galler.” 

“You’re just saying that.” 

“I’m not,” Derek stated. “Her and I talked while you were in the bathroom.” 

“About me.” 

“No,” Derek said, shaking his head as he unlocked the car and the two go in. 

“Actually, we talked about my relationship with Isaac.” 

Stiles didn’t expect his husband to go any further as they pulled onto the main road, but Derek surprised him with, “I told her about how I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. And how I wish I could feel more connected to him.” He sighed as he leaned his elbow on the door of the car and rubbed his left temple. “Like the breathing thing,” Derek explained, shaking his head. “That’s something you two don’t have to explain to each other.” 

“You can sense when he’s sick, though,” Stiles countered. “That counts for something.” 

“It’s still hard for me,” Derek sighed again, pushing a hand through his hair. “I can’t always decipher between just wheezing and an actual attack.” 

“Even I don’t always know when he’s at that point,” Stiles tried to assure Derek. 

“I don’t know. It’s like you’re the natural parent and I’m just _not_.”

“Would you believe me if I said I feel the same way?” 

“No.” 

“Well, I do,” Stiles explained. “I’m always second guessing myself, thinking that I’m making mistakes that are going to be with Isaac for the rest of his life.” 

“But you’re not.” 

“And neither are you,” Stiles stated, words resonating with Derek the rest of the ride home. 

x

“Are the elbow pads too much?” Derek asked as he and Stiles, just home from work, watched Isaac waddle down the driveway towards the shiny blue bicycle he’d received for Christmas. It had been a pain for Stiles to put together, especially when he’d had to attach the training wheels, but seeing Isaac’s eyes light up once he was feeling well enough to open up his presents had made it worth it. 

“Yeah, and so are the knee pads,” Stiles laughed as he loosened his tie, jogging over to relieve the child of the tight and bulky safety gear. 

“He has to wear the helmet, though,” Derek stated sternly. 

“Yeah, that’s not going anywhere,” Stiles agreed as he pulled the Velcro of the pads apart and dropped them onto the asphalt. 

“I told him he had to stay in the driveway.” 

“We can take him around the block, stop at the park,” Stiles offered as Isaac began to pedal in a circle. “I’ll bring the whiffle ball and plastic bat.” 

They directed Isaac towards Adams Street after Stiles changed out of his dress clothes, the toddler finding a slow but comfortable pace as his parents walked behind him. He was breathing hard, but Derek could sense that their son was okay; he wasn’t really wheezing, just exerting himself. Stiles took Derek’s hand in his as they turned the block, the family enjoying the cool breeze as the playground came into sight. 

Isaac insisted that Derek push him on the swing the second his bike tires hit the grass, his tiny fingers fiddling to get the helmet strap undone. Stiles had had to help, but Isaac was quick to wiggle out of it and claim a swing for himself. 

“Push me, Papa!” he yelled as Derek and Stiles trotted over, Stiles sitting in the swing beside him as Derek positioned himself behind his son. 

“Hold on tight,” Derek warned before his tone became playful. “Ready for blast-off?” 

“Yes!” Isaac cheered, hands firmly gripping the twisted metal chains. 

“Three,” Derek announced as he pushed Isaac forward, “two,” he continued, pulling Isaac backwards. “One!” they yelled together, Derek letting go to let Isaac swing. 

“Pump your legs like Daddy,” Stiles explained as he modeled the move for the child. “See? Use your arms, too.” Isaac’s tongue stuck out in concentration as he tried to get his muscles to comply, finally finding a rhythm that gave him enough power to continue swinging. 

“There you go,” Derek smiled, giving Isaac another push to keep him going. 

“It’s hard,” Isaac said breathlessly as he continued to pump his legs and pull at the chains. 

“The more you practice the less hard it’ll be,” Stiles explained. 

“Like…t-ball?” Isaac asked, trying to catch his breath. 

“Just like t-ball,” Stiles smiled. 

“You can take a rest, Ize. Papa’ll push,” Derek offered. 

“No,” Isaac said determinedly as he pushed and pulled to keep the swing’s momentum. “I hafta practice!” 

“Maybe when your lungs are stronger,” Derek explained, giving Isaac another push. 

“But…they’re strong…now!” Isaac argued, still pumping his legs. 

“He’ll stop when he’s tired,” Stiles said nonchalantly as he got off of his swing and joined Derek behind Isaac, not wanting to make a scene. 

“He’s wheezing.” 

“He’s always wheezing,” Stiles countered, eyes falling to his feet. “Look,” he finally said. “I know you’re worried. Part of me is always worried, too. But he needs to start knowing his own body and he can’t do that if we jump in every time he’s out of breath.” 

“What if I don’t agree?” 

“He’ll tell us if he’s having trouble.” 

“Will he?” Derek raised an eyebrow. 

“I wouldn’t be letting him play t-ball if I thought that we were back where we were in September, Derek.” 

Isaac stopped pumping and let his legs dangle as the swing slowed, feet just a few inches short of dragging through the dirt. “Just takin’…a bweak,” he explained, looking back at his parents with a smile as he let his breathing settle. 

“You wanna head home, honey?” Derek asked, worried that Isaac might need medicine to get rid of his wheeze. 

“No, we gotta practice!” Isaac explained as he let himself off of the swing and grabbed the yellow bat beside his bike. “I wanna be good like Adwian Gonzales!” 

“What about David Wright?” Stiles asked, pretending to be hurt that Isaac chose an LA Dodgers player over the Mets. 

“Papa says the Mets stink,” Isaac said, rolling the white whiffle ball to Derek. 

“Oh, really?” Stiles asked playfully, picking up the ball from the grass before his husband could. Derek just rolled his eyes and smiled. “And what else does Papa say?” 

“That the Dodgers awe gonna make it to the world sewies!” 

“Is that right?” 

“Mmhm. And he gotted us tickets to the first game of the season!” 

“Wait, really?” Stiles asked excitedly. 

“I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier,” Derek explained, taking the opportunity to grab the ball from Stiles’ grip. 

“Hey!” Stiles yelled, running after his husband. “Give that back!” 

“Gonna have to get it from me,” he teased, leading Stiles around the park once before returning to Isaac. The two spent the next hour taking turns throwing their son some slow pitches and helping him adjust his hold on the bat. 

It wasn’t until the sun began to set and Isaac was half-asleep in Derek’s arms that he realized that the whistle in his son’s breathing that he’d gotten so crazy over had disappeared without the help of medicine. Stiles was beside him attempting to ride Isaac’s bike down the street, the ridiculousness causing Derek to chuckle to himself. 

“What?” Stiles asked as he stood up to pedal, knowing exactly why his husband was laughing. 

“I’m just trying to figure out how I ended up with you,” Derek smiled, shaking his head. 

“Am I embarrassing you or something?” Stiles teased. 

“When are you _not_ embarrassing me?” Derek asked, adjusting the bat in his free hand. 

“Good question,” Stiles smiled, continuing to pedal until he reached the garage, Derek still laughing as he climbed the front steps and unlocked the front door. 


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for sticking with me and my fic for so long! This story has become so much more than I ever thought it would. I like to think of this particular chapter as a breath of fresh air for the Stilinski-Hale family, but that's all I'm going to give away. :) Just a note: The chapter jumps around a lot time-wise, so if you get confused, just know that there are a few flashbacks (Dr. Galler's office, a moment after their frist visit to Dr. Marmon's, etc.). Even with the jumping around, I think it flows easily enough where it will be readable. Also, HUGE shoutout to Casey for being the awesome editor that she is even in the midst of the back to school shuffle. Enjoy! Please comment so that I know what you guys are thinking! :)

“Do you think we baby Isaac?” Derek asked as he was folding clothes on one side of their bed, Stiles planning lessons from his laptop on the other. 

“Define “baby”,” Stiles replied distractedly, still typing, eyes glued to the screen. 

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, pulling a towel from the basket. “Like, give in to his tantrums or do too much for him.” 

“Examples?” 

“Putting his socks and shoes on. Pouring his juice.” 

“He’s three,” Stiles retorted, eyes rolling and finally meeting Derek’s. 

“Going on four,” Derek added, folding the towel against his chest. “His birthday’s in May.” 

“Do you want him pouring his own juice? Because I can tell you right-”

“Okay, maybe not the juice thing. But his socks and shoes. And running to see what’s wrong every time he starts to cry.” 

“Because when he gets worked up he’s more likely to have an attack,” Stiles explained. “And the last time he was really upset and under the table you were the one trying to soothe him, so-”

“You know what I mean!” Derek groaned as he grabbed another towel. 

Stiles closed his laptop and pushed it off to the side. “Where is all of this coming from, anyway?” 

“Huh?” 

“Why are you suddenly so concerned that we’re negatively impacting our child by tying his shoes and pouring his juice for him?” 

“Kindergarten is just a little over a year away and I don’t want him to be the kid crying at the bus stop or being made fun of because he’s sucking his thumb.” 

“Seriously?” 

“What?!” 

“Isaac never even sucks his thumb! Are you reading mommy blogs again?” 

“I don’t read mommy blogs!” 

Stiles raised an eyebrow and laughed. “You so read mommy blogs on your lunch hour!” 

“This isn’t funny! I don’t know why you’re laughing.” 

“I get to laugh at this because it’s proof that you’re losing your mind,” Stiles continued excitedly. 

“Sorry that I don’t work with children all day and have years of experience in the maternal department,” Derek grumbled. 

“Der, come on,” Stiles said, crawling closer to his husband before sitting back on his heels. “I was just joking around.” 

“You really have no idea what these past few months have been like for me,” he muttered, shaking his head as he loaded the basket back up with folded linens and Isaac’s clothes. 

“Babe.” 

“No, it’s fine. Just leave it,” he mumbled as he left the room with the basket on his hip, free hand waving Stiles away. 

“I didn’t mean to make you upset,” Stiles tried as he walked towards Derek pushing a stack of towels into the hallway closet. “I thought you were in a playful mood.” 

“Am I ever?” 

“No, but-”

“Just leave it, okay? I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” 

“Hey, I read them too, sometimes, okay?” Stiles admitted, leaning against the hallway wall with his arms crossed. 

“You’re just saying that because you’re trying to kill your comments with kindness, which might work on someone who isn’t married to you, but-”

“Where do you think I got ideas for peanut free snacks and Isaac’s medical alert bracelet?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Mommy blogs,” Stiles repeated, to which Derek just shook his head and picked up the basket again. 

“I just feel like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing most of the time.” 

“I get that too, Der.” 

“I don’t know. I don’t think it’s…that we’re experiencing the same thing,” he sighed, stopping at Isaac’s door. “I was kind of hoping that the t-ball thing would work out, give Ize and me something in common, you know?” he said quietly before cracking the door open slightly just to peek in for a moment to make sure the toddler was okay, leaving the basket on the carpet by his closet. 

“You’re talking like the kid loves me more or something,” Stiles chuckled softly once Derek pulled the door shut, stopping when he saw his husband set his jaw and look away. “Wait, you really think that Isaac loves me more?” 

“What if he hates t-ball?” 

“You’re avoiding my question.” 

“He’s…loved you more since day one, Stiles,” Derek sighed, feeling tears burn in his eyes, chest feeling heavy with the onset of emotion. 

“That’s not true. Not at all, and you know it!” 

“He looks at you like you’ve hung the freaking moon,” Derek said with glassy eyes, his voice low. 

“Well, if he thinks I’ve hung the moon, then he knows you’re the one who made it in the first place,” Stiles whispered, taking one of Derek’s hand in his. 

“I don’t even think that makes sense,” Derek laughed through his tears, squeezing Stiles’ hand. 

“All of those nights you were on business and he had attacks or bad dreams, he asked for you, too. Just like he called out for you when he was upset about the Valentine’s tea.” 

Derek just shrugged with a sniffle. 

“He won’t hate t-ball if we teach him how to love it.” 

“I don’t want to force-”

“I meant that we should show him what we love about it, why we even bother to watch and play it in the first place.” 

“I don’t know how, though.”

“Yes, you do; we’ve got tickets to the game,” Stiles smiled, wrapping his arms around his husband’s neck. “Babe, you need to stop worrying so much.” Derek nodded, forehead meeting Stiles’ with a long exhale, two standing there in the dimly lit hallway for a few moments. 

“Are you happy?” Derek finally whispered. 

“More than I’ve ever been before.” 

“Me too,” he smiled, tears drying before they could fall. 

x 

“Daddy?” Isaac asked nervously, hand in Stiles’ as the small family navigated through the crowded stadium to their section

“What’s up, baby boy?” Stiles asked back as they continued to move. 

“They has peanuts!” he pointed, eyes wide as he watched fellow game-goers pass with open bags of the food. “I wanna go home,” he began to whimper, tears falling as his hand slid from Stiles’ and he hugged his stomach. 

“Ize,” Stiles soothed as he kneeled down in front of his son and placed his hands softly on his forearms. “Hey, it’s okay, baby. Papa got us peanut-free seats.” 

“I’m scawed,” he continued to cry, breaths quickening as he rushed into Stiles’ arms and pushed his face into his shirt. “I wanna go home!” 

“Shh,” he cooed as he lifted Isaac into his arms. “I know it’s scary, but we have your medicine just in case. And all of Papa’s work friends sitting in the box promised that they wouldn’t eat peanuts today.” 

“Weally?” he asked with a sniffle. 

“One of the guys I work with has a peanut allergy, too, so everything’s been wiped down and the ticket people won’t let anyone with them in to our section,” Derek reassured him with a smile. 

“Otay,” he agreed, though he was still a bit nervous as he looked around from Stiles’ arms. 

“And I brought all of your favorite snacks, so we don’t have to worry about the stadium food,” Stiles promised as they continued their trip towards their section. 

“But what if I get a froat tickle?” 

“Then you just tell me or Papa, okay?” 

“I’m still scawed,” he whimpered as he clung to his father, legs tightening around his waist as the fear surged through his little body. 

“I know, baby. You’re okay, though. We’re almost to our seats,” Stiles soothed, letting Derek get ahead of them so that he could hand their tickets over to be scanned. 

Stiles wanted to tell his son that once the game began he wouldn’t have a care in the world, that his fear would soon be a distant memory, attention replaced by the crack of a bat hitting a ball and the roar of the crowd. But he knew that saying such a thing would be a mistake; having Isaac aware and advocating for himself had been hard enough to instill, and the fact that he’d had such a strong emotional response to people passing with open peanut bags made Stiles feel a surge of pride towards his son. 

He thought about one particular session with Dr. Galler sometime in the beginning, back when they were still trying to figure out Isaac’s behaviors and how to go about handling things healthily. 

“It’s like he’s been brainwashed about his asthma and allergies,” Stiles had commented, right leg jiggling nervously as he and Derek sat across the therapist. “He knows when his airways are closing but he won’t admit to it or let us help him. It’s like he’s been…,” Stiles said, squeezing his hands into fists in frustration at his inability to find the right words. 

“Forced into submission,” Derek said dryly, eyes focused on his interlocked fingers as he leaned over his knees. Stiles had just looked over and taken a deep breath, hating that that was the truth. 

“I just have this fear that he’ll eat something dangerous when we aren’t there and then keep it from someone who can help because of what he’s been taught,” Stiles admitted; this was before they had learned of Isaac’s strawberry allergy, when the first visit to Dr. Marmon’s had Derek reading the inserts to each and every medication that afternoon in the kitchen. 

“It says here that it can cause decreased adrenal function,” Derek explained as he held Isaac’s red inhaler in one hand and the pamphlet for the medication in the other. “I’ve never even heard of that before!” 

“They just have to put all of the side effects people experienced during trials on the label for legal reasons,” Stiles explained as he began placing all of Isaac’s medications into a blue plastic box. “I was on Flovent for years and none of that happened to me.” 

“Side effects for Orapred,” Derek began, voice growing cynical as he picked up the bottle of corticosteroids. “This drug may infrequently cause serious bleeding from the stomach or intestines.” 

“I practically lived on prednisone as a kid, Der. Isaac is going to be just fine,” he tried to assure him. “He probably won’t even be on some of these for long anyway. It’s just to give his airways a break.” 

Derek couldn’t ignore the fact that his son’s breathing was hard to listen to, each wheezy and strained inhale proof of the work the toddler was doing just to get a simple breath of oxygen. The first four days they’d had Isaac without anything but the help of an inhaler had Derek up all night listening for the toddler’s next breath, and when he’d finally witnessed a full-on attack the night before their first doctor’s appointment, he couldn’t help but feel completely lost as Stiles calmly set up his nebulizer for their son. 

“We’ll just have to teach him how to advocate for himself,” Derek had shrugged that day in Dr. Galler’s office, the suggestion surprising Stiles. “I’ve been doing a little research,” he continued, using his hands to explain. “Maybe we explain why he can’t have certain things and teach him how to ask if the food is peanut-free. I know he’s young, but if we can help him become more aware and confident about how to handle it all by modeling the appropriate behavior, he might be more apt to say something or come to us.” 

Had Stiles not been so thrown off by Derek’s suggestion, he would have realized that the “research” his husband had admitted to was why he was up until two in the morning most nights “sending emails and finishing Excel spreadsheets for sales meetings”. That what he’d read on his iPad his last trip to Chicago was not, in fact, David Sedaris’ quirky non-fiction When You Are Engulfed in Flames as he’d said, but The Peanut Allergy Answer Book. 

If he had just been a little more observant of the kinds of articles Derek was reading on his iPhone as he stirred his morning coffee or was even slightly attuned to the small “suggestions” Derek would continue to offer over the course of their first months with Isaac, he might have realized that Derek’s anxiety concerning Isaac’s breathing existed solely because he knew with every cell in his body that something as small as one, tiny peanut could unravel Isaac’s entire world. 

Derek would not let that happen to his family; he could not lose either of the two fragile humans that formed his pack. They made him feel, kept him breathing and enjoying and living in a way that he hadn’t thought was possible after the fire. And he had gifts, senses and powers that could help protect his husband and son if he could just fine-tune them enough to detect faint wheezing and peanut dust and rising pollen levels. 

He’d promised himself on the first car ride home from Dr. Marmon’s office that he would train himself, boost his senses so that he could prevent the asthma from reaching such a critical point. I’ll talk to Deaton, Derek thought that night as Stiles gave Isaac his first treatment in the rocking chair, the buzzing of the nebulizer filling the upstairs hallway where he leaned his forehead and a fist against the wall in defeat. He’ll know how to help, he hoped, holding back tears as anger flooded his body. 

“I can fix this,” he told himself over and over between panicked breaths when Isaac went into anaphylactic shock after he’d eaten a strawberry GoGurt and he hadn’t been able to get Stiles’ Jeep started in the driveway after the ambulance had left. “I promise.” 

x

Stiles watched as Derek balanced Isaac atop his shoulders in the stands, the child’s blonde curls peeking out from beneath his LA Dodgers hat as he blocked his father’s vision with his hands. Derek laughed and moved them gently to the top of his ball cap before pointing to the field below. Stiles couldn’t help but push his hands into his pockets and smile smugly, because that right there? That was what he’d imagined fatherhood to be like, and despite all of the anxious moments they’d shared in the past seven months, he knew that what he was feeling that very second would someday come. That he’d be able to take a step back and watch two of the most important people in his life enjoy a happy, healthy moment. 

By the time the game went into an extra inning, Isaac was hatless and asleep in Derek’s arms, small legs wrapped around his middle, head resting on his chest, mouth open. Derek rocked slowly from side to side as he conversed softly with a few of his coworkers while they sipped at the last round of beers. Stiles grinned, shaking his head at the fact that Derek, who hadn’t even wanted to be a dad, was becoming such a natural. 

He had to admit, watching his husband act all fatherly while also managing to do business was actually pretty hot. 

And, of course, absolutely adorable. 

It was all Stiles could think about later that night as they made their way home from the game. 

“Do you hear that?” Derek whispered, though it was more excited than panicked. 

“Hear what?” Stiles asked tiredly, lifting his head from the window he’d been leaning against. 

“Just listen,” he instructed, the only sounds audible in the car that of the tires on the road and the low rumble of the engine. 

“I don’t really…,” Stiles trailed after a moment, any ounce of patience he’d had trumped by confusion. 

“There’s no wheeze,” Derek explained softly as he glanced at Isaac in the rearview mirror. “He’s fast asleep and his breathing is full and even.” 

“Wait, you don’t hear any wheeze? Like…even with your senses?” Stiles asked, suddenly more awake. 

“The meds are working,” Derek smiled, glancing over for a short second to share the moment with Stiles. 


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry about the long wait. I just started two new jobs and things have been really hectic. I do have a 5k chapter, though, so hopefully that makes up for it! Thanks to Casey, as always, for being a great alpha reader even though she's busy with school and life. This story would not be where it is today without you! And thank you to all of you who are still keeping up with this fic. 
> 
> Don't forget to leave kudos, review/comment, and subscribe!

Stiles tapped his foot and bit his nail as he waited for his father to come through on the line. He knew that if he called dispatch directly they’d give him the “leave the line open for emergency calls only” warning and dismiss him, so he’d settled for his father’s cell, hoping he wasn’t in the middle of a call. 

“This better be important,” John sighed into the phone. 

“Dad,” he exhaled, thankful to finally hear his voice. “Okay, really quick, have there been any accidents reported for a black Chevy Camaro in the last twelve hours? Or John Doe’s matching a scarily accurate description of Derek?” 

“I don’t really have time for this,” his father groaned into the phone. “But the answer is no, to both questions. Can I go now?” 

“Yeah, I just…don’t know where Derek is and it’s after nine and I’m starting to panic a little and-” Stiles admitted, emotion balling up in his throat at the thought that even the Sheriff of Beacon Hills hadn’t overheard anything. 

“Did you call him?” 

“Of course I called him,” Stiles huffed into the phone, annoyed. “Five times, with voicemails. And I sent at least six texts.” 

“Did he say anything about working late?” 

“I don’t think so.” 

“You don’t think so?” his father asked, irritated. 

“I don’t know,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Maybe he did. Things have been a little crazy around here lately and-” Stiles explained, stopping when he heard the front door open. “Oh, thank the Lord Jesus,” he sighed in relief, ending the phone call after the Sheriff realized Derek wasn’t, in fact, missing. 

“Everything okay?” Derek asked as he rushed into the living room, eyes questioning the harried look on Stiles’ face. He’d sensed his husband’s wheezing from down the block, had stepped heavily on the gas pedal after the last stop sign off of Hemlock Street and ran up the steps as his fingers fiddled with the keys to get the front door open. 

“No!” Stiles yelled angrily as he shoved his phone into his pocket, Derek slightly relieved at the fact that his husband wasn’t in the middle of the attack he’d been expecting. “Where the hell have you been?!” 

“I told you last weekend that I was going to work late on Friday so that I could go to Isaac’s game tomorrow because you said you’d be busy with the plant sale,” Derek explained, annoyed that his husband had exploded on him after such a long day. 

The conversation, which had taken place as Derek stirred sauce on the stovetop and Stiles drained pasta in the sink, was suddenly vivid in Stiles’ mind. He closed his eyes and began to grind his teeth together, angry with himself for forgetting something that had been so stupidly obvious. “We were supposed to have date night at seven,” he fumed, even though he knew the mix-up had been his fault. “We talked about it on Wednesday, remember?” They had, but even he couldn’t remember anything beyond mentioning it as possible plans; had they even picked a restaurant or movie? 

“Stiles-” Derek tried, but his husband was already talking. 

“I had to tell Lydia to go home after she’d already driven over here in rush-hour traffic,” he shook his head, trying to get his mouth to stop. The stress was taking over though, prices and names of potted plants filling his head as he continued. “And instead of making dinner and getting the rest of the stuff together for the sale tomorrow I’ve been trying to contact you to make sure you hadn’t ended up in a ditch somewhere on your way home from work!” 

“My phone died at the office and I didn’t have the-”

“You could have called from your desk!” 

“I assumed you’d remember I was staying late because someone needs to be with Isaac tomorrow morning,” Derek argued. 

Stiles knew that. Or, at least, now he did. The answer had been right in front of him, watching worriedly from the couch as his father had paced around with his fists clenched and his cheeks bright red from stress. Stiles’ brain had been so preoccupied with everything else going on that he’d forgotten a conversation that had actually been about the most important person in his and Derek’s life. 

He felt the room spin, eyes unable to keep up with the pain now filling his head. His feet stumbled back a few steps, Stiles regaining balance as he turned from his husband and son and went for his office, locking the door behind him so that he could finish printing signs and updating the Excel spreadsheet that had sadly become the center of his life ever since he’d signed on to the PTA. 

x

“Papa?” Isaac asked quietly, stomach rumbling as he stood a good two feet behind his still-suited father who was prepping a frozen pizza for dinner. The child had watched Stiles pace anxiously around the house for hours and was afraid that Derek, too, was in a bad mood. 

“Mhmm?” Derek asked, tone non-threatening as the stove beeped, preheat complete. 

“Why’s Daddy mad?” Isaac asked, finally feeling it was safe to do so. 

“Just some grown-up stuff,” he explained as he slid a tray into the oven. “It has nothing to do with you, baby.” He closed the door and set the timer. 

“Is he mad at _you_?” 

“I think Daddy’s just stressed right now. And when adults are stressed, they get upset easily and say things they don’t mean. I think he just need some space,” Derek explained as he peeled his jacket off and hung it from one of the kitchen chairs. 

“Like when I used to get scawed and hide under the table?” 

“Just like that,” Derek smiled softly as he squatted in front of his son. 

“How much space does Daddy need?” Isaac finally asked, fingers by his mouth showing Derek how nervous the child was about the situation. 

“He’ll come out of his office soon,” Derek promised softly, thinking of ways to change the tone in the house. “In the meantime,” he proposed with a smile, “how about we make some brownies for dessert while the pizza bakes?”

“No peanuts,” Isaac reminded him as he pulled his fingers away from his face. 

“I bought the right mix this time so we’re good to go,” Derek assured him, knowing the last time they’d ended up with a brand that was made on machinery that also processed nuts and they’d had to throw it out before even getting to begin. 

“Pwomise?” 

“Promise,” Derek smiled before lifting Isaac into his arms and peppering him with kisses all over; the child laughed and gave off little screeches at the ticklish feeling, Derek thankful that the child hadn’t pulled away nervously or panicked at the sudden movement. He loved that they’d made it over that hump, that Isaac finally felt like his even if he hadn’t always been. 

“You silly,” Isaac giggled as Derek settled him on his hip. 

“That’s because I missed my Isaac all day,” Derek said as he pulled the mix from the cabinet. 

“I missed you, too,” Isaac yawned happily as he rested his tired head against his papa’s chest. 

“Are you falling asleep on me?” Derek asked playfully, a glance at the clock telling him that it was way past the child’s usual bedtime. 

“Can’t fall asleep,” he said tiredly as he rubbed one eye. “I gotsta do my tweatment.” 

“That’s right,” Derek nodded, impressed that Isaac had reminded him; he’d almost forgotten, probably would have put him to bed without a second thought because his doctor appointment had gone so well earlier in the week. 

“His lungs sound great,” Dr. Marmon had smiled as she listened to Isaac’s breathing. “He’s been off of the steroids almost a month now?” Stiles had nodded, thankful that they’d finished that particular medication; the moods, food cravings, and hyperactivity was something he hoped they wouldn’t have to deal with any time soon. 

“The Singulair didn’t seem to work during the fall, right?” she asked as she let her stethoscope fall onto the counter beside Isaac’s chart, which she promptly began to page through. 

“It bothered his stomach so we just gave him Allegra on the bad allergy days,” Derek explained, the doctor nodding as she found that in her notes. 

“Well, at this point I think we can just stick with his morning inhaler and night treatment as preventative care. We’re in the middle of allergy season, but the Allegra should be fine. I don’t see any need for the extra steroid inhaler. Let’s see how he does without it.” 

Derek smiled the entire walk to the car and drive home, calmness that filled him one that he was convinced would never come. A small part of him worried that the lack of certain medications would cause their son’s breathing to go downhill, but he also thought about the fact that his lungs were still sounding so well even though he’d been off of the oral steroids for so long. 

“Hey, you better not fall asleep on me,” Derek warned with a bit of Stiles’ usual sarcasm and a smile as he started Isaac’s treatment on the living room couch. The theme song to a popular Nick Jr. show played in the background, cable box reading 9:48 PM. 

“Or what?” Isaac asked through the medicine-filled fish mask. 

“Or I’ll have to eat all of the brownies myself!” 

“No fair, Papa!” 

“I’m just kidding, baby,” Derek said before kissing his son on the forehead. “I’m going to go check on the pizza and put our dessert in, okay?” 

Isaac nodded and focused his eyes on the TV as he gripped Balto tightly, Derek making it halfway across the room before the child asked, “Awe you gonna be mad if I fall asleep?” 

“Why would I be mad?” he asked, turning around. 

“I don’t know,” Isaac shrugged, adjusting the mask so it was more comfortable on his face. 

“You can close your eyes; no one is going to be mad at you,” he assured him softly. “I’ll wake you up when it’s time to eat, okay?” 

Isaac nodded and lessened his hold on Balto, Derek watching for a few moments to make sure his son’s anxiety had truly lessened before heading back into the kitchen. 

He’d never had to worry about feeling like that growing up, at least not often enough that he could remember, which was why he was so upset with Stiles for having stirred up Isaac’s fear when he knew how hard it was for the child to work through it. He knew that his husband was tired, stress over work and lack of sleep clouding his judgment. Derek was tired, too, but he’d been able to stop and take a deep breath, remind himself that there was someone counting on him for dinner (and his nighttime medication, as he’d been reminded) while his husband had stalked off and slammed his office door shut. 

As angry as Derek was, though, all that he really wanted was to take the stress away from his husband, extract it until his arms were nothing but dark veins and Stiles wasn’t wheezing anymore; he hated that he could sense it from across the house, was able to feel it in his own lungs as he secured his own chest to his husband’s back and just held him close in the middle of the night. It was hard to be truly angry, he thought to himself as he returned to the kitchen, when one of the people you loved most was experiencing pain that you couldn’t heal completely, even with superhuman abilities. 

Derek had always thought he knew all about anger and healing. His life, post-fire, had been full of an anger that sometimes he still didn’t understand completely. For years pain seemed to hide in every cell of his body, always managing to surface during his most vulnerable moments. It had been a fact of life since that October day, something he could rely on as the one constant in his life. But now, with a husband and a home and a child, pain meant something else. 

Now, pain was more than him, more than he could be, more than he ever thought he could _handle_. Because it wasn’t just his pain anymore, the burden on his shoulders, the new constant in his life, and as much as he hated it, or wanted to, he couldn’t. 

This pain, eating away at his heart as he cut a small piece of the pizza and set it on a plate for Isaac who he knew was already fast asleep on the living room couch, was worth something. Meant that he was capable of feeling, something he hadn’t welcomed fully until the day Isaac came into their lives, when he’d watched Stiles pull the then-toddler into his arms and give him a long, sweet kiss on his forehead, eyes tearing as he adjusted him against his hip. His heart had just leapt at that, and it continued to do so, especially on the nights when he gently removed the mask from Isaac’s sleeping face and he got to pull him into his arms, child’s soft snores following him long after he tucked him into bed and closed his own eyes. 

x

Stiles’ head and feet were throbbing four hours into the PTA flower sale at his school, mostly from the two hour mini-crises involving thinking they had run out of morning glories. Disaster had been averted just a half hour earlier when a parent found three extra boxes from the florist in the trunk of her car. 

“How much are these?” an older woman with salt and pepper hair asked as she lifted a pot filled with some kind of herb. 

“Eight,” he read from the small, green plastic tag sticking up in the dirt as he wiped his hands on his pants, barely taking a breath before moving towards the checkout area. The pollen in the air from the rows of various potted plants was making him cough, but he’d spent too much time planning and balancing budgets to leave the sale up to the other PTA members. That, and he had the administration watching, the money raised from the flowers expected to be enough to help purchase new, safer playground equipment. It also didn’t help that he’d caught wind of a baby-boomer’s retirement, the news supposedly a secret that only a few higher-ups were to know about; that meant that Stiles might be able stay if the budget involved keeping Mrs. Felder’s second grade position. If the pressure hadn’t been on, it definitely was now. 

As he handed a customer her change, he felt a tug on his chinos from behind, mind so bogged down from running constantly the last few hours that he almost snapped at what he suddenly realized was his son. 

“Daddy!” Isaac cheered when Stiles’ eyes met his, the child jumping up and down in his Little League uniform. 

“Hey baby,” he smiled, negative mood dissolving a bit as he lifted him into his arms. Derek came into view, hands deep within his pockets, leather jacket snug against his surly body. “What are you guys doing here?” 

“Papa said we should put lilies in our garden ‘cause they was his mama’s favorite.” 

“That sounds like a great idea,” Stiles smiled, thinking that they’d also been his mother’s favorite as well. “How was the game?” 

“We winned again!” 

“Ize got a home run,” Derek said, hesitating before giving his husband a quick peck on the lips as he tried to figure out where they were relationship-wise since their argument the night before. 

“Just wike we practiced!” Isaac explained happily, excitement from the game blinding him to the tension between his parents. “Papa tapeded it on his phone.” 

“I’ll have to watch it later,” Stiles promised, trying to smile but feeling so exhausted that he could barely get his lips to curve. 

“So, how’s the sale?” Derek asked to move the conversation along. 

“It’s going. Should be home in another three hours if everything stays on track.” 

“You up for that rain check on date night?” 

“Yeah,” Stiles sighed, looking around and feeling overwhelmed at the amount of work he knew taking everything down would be. “Just need a shower when I get home.” 

“We can do it another night,” Derek offered softly when he realized Stiles was still wheezing slightly. He watched as his husband’s hand patted the pocket outlined by the shape of his inhaler. 

“Nah, tonight’s fine,” he answered before coughing quickly. “Pick a restaurant and a movie and I’m there.” 

“Why don’t you take a break? I can run the register for a few minutes,” Derek offered, but Stiles was already shaking his head, another cough coming through as he let Isaac down. 

“Why don’t you pick out a pot of lilies for the garden,” Stiles said to Isaac, pointing to the display closest to them. Isaac smiled and walked over to the plants, contemplating which one would be perfect enough to take home. 

“Have you even eaten today?” Derek asked quietly. Stiles’ eyes narrowed and met his husband’s, mouth twisting in annoyance. 

“I’m fine,” Stiles stated sternly as a PTA mother tapped him on the shoulder and alerted him to another mini-crisis, Derek overhearing something about flower pots having been knocked over before he watched his husband walk away without another word. 

x

Watching as Stiles pulled a shirt over his head post-shower, Derek noticed just how much weight his husband had lost in the past two months since he’d added an administrative position in the PTA to his schedule. He didn’t say a word at that moment, though, because he could feel how on edge his husband was just by watching the way he moved around the room to apply deodorant and unplug his phone from its charger. He could still hear the wheezing despite the heat from the shower, though it had helped a little. It wasn’t until he watched Stiles cough nonchalantly and rub at his chest, though, that he began to worry that the date would end up being more harm than good. 

The doorbell rang as Derek’s eyes tracked his husband, but Stiles didn’t give any indication that he was going to let Lydia in. In fact, it almost seemed as though he hadn’t heard the ringing at all, like his mind was already sleeping and his body was just going through the motions of post-shower muscle memory. 

“Lydia’s here,” Derek announced as he left the room, a quick glance at his watch as he shuffled down the stairs letting him know that they were going to have to leave within the next ten minutes if they wanted to get a seat at their favorite Italian place, Positano’s before the rush.

x

“You were supposed to turn right at Forester Ave,” Stiles mumbled as he leaned tiredly against the car window. 

“I know.” 

“So if you know then why didn’t you?” There was an edge to his voice, but Derek refused to match it. 

“Because we’re not going to Positano’s.” 

“I’m starving and would really like to eat _right now_. As in, don’t-feel-like-waiting-a-half-hour-for-a-table-now.” 

“I had something else in mind,” Derek explained softly as he turned left onto Arrowroot Street. “And you won’t have to wait at all.” 

“I hate surprises.” 

“It’s not a surprise,” Derek explained, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “Do you remember that time we were walking around LA and it was raining and we ended up having dinner at that coffee shop because we had nowhere to go?” 

“Not in the mood for coffee,” Stiles mumbled, voice hoarse from coughing. 

“I’ll be right back,” Derek promised as he pulled into a free space against the curb in front of his favorite coffee shop, Knights of the Ground Table, and threw the car into park. 

“I was serious about the no-coffee thing,” Stiles groaned, eyes closed as he got comfortable between the window and headrest of his seat, but Derek was already across the sidewalk, pocketing his keys as he entered the shop. 

Derek returned with the handles of a brown paper bag over one wrist and a holder with two to-go coffee cups, free hand opening the driver’s door and pushing what smelled like a mix of broccoli, cheddar, and biscuits into the car. 

“Grab the drinks?” Derek asked as he slid into his seat, Stiles moving from his half-asleep position and pulling the cardboard holder from his husband. He held his cup in his hands after placing Derek’s in the console, happily breathing in the warmth radiating through the cover. 

“You got me green tea,” Stiles said softly, defenses falling as he breathed in the steam and felt his airways relax. 

“I know it helps your breathing,” Derek said, quietly offering up the information as he turned the car on and pulled out onto the road. 

“And…is this quiche?” Stiles said as he peeked into the paper bag with his index finger. 

“Yeah,” Derek chuckled, knowing it seemed a bit random. “You love broccoli cheddar soup, so I figured this was close enough.” 

Stiles couldn’t help but smile at that; his mother’s version of the soup was one of the things he missed most about her, and though his father always tried to copy the recipe, it had just never tasted right. He pulled a piece of the buttery crust from the bag and popped it into his mouth. 

“So, where are we going?” he asked as he chewed. 

“You’ll see.” 

“I hate surprises,” he repeated, but his tone was less grumpy now that he had a steaming cup of happiness in his hands. 

“It’s not a surprise,” Derek promised as he merged onto the highway to take them towards the city. “We’ve been there before.” 

“Griffith Park?” Stiles guessed, knowing that it was one of the few familiar places in the direction they were headed. “There’ll be, like, a million people there for the planetarium! And it’s already dark, so that’ll be closing soon.” 

“We’re not getting out of the car.” 

“What?” Stiles asked, confused. He knew that their trip up the hill would take some time, that they probably would find an available parking space only once they’d reached two thirds of the way up, and there was nothing to do at that point except look out the window from their place along the side of the road. 

“Because you need green tea, something to eat, and peace and quiet. So, we’re going to park on the hill and overlook the city so that you can take some time to actually relax,” Derek stated. 

“I’m fine,” he grumbled. 

“You’ve lost weight.” That was one thing Stiles knew he couldn’t deny; he’d only started noticing that his pants were hanging loosely off of his hips just a few days before. But that didn’t stop him from throwing Derek a nasty look. 

“And you think making me eat quiche is going to fatten me up?” Stiles argued, but he found that he couldn’t stay mad no matter how much he wanted to. He put the lid of his tea to his lips and took a few sips as Derek continued to drive, the drink soothing his throat. “Sorry,” he finally apologized with a soft sigh. “You’re…right. About the weight thing. And the relaxing.” 

Derek just nodded and kept his hands firmly on the wheel while he let Stiles feast on the quiche. Once they were parked and the two had drank their separate teas, Stiles let himself lean into his husband’s embrace in the back seat, eyes closing as he rested his head against Derek’s chest. 

“You don’t always need to worry about me, you know,” Stiles mumbled sleepily, wheeze adding a huskiness to his voice. 

“Yes, I do,” Derek smiled, pushing his hands through his husband’s hair. “And I don’t mind it at all.” 

“See, I know that’s a lie…because no one likes worrying,” Stiles explained, tone light. 

“Didn’t say I liked it, just said that I don’t _mind_ it,” Derek corrected. 

“Lies,” Stiles yawned through a smile. “All…lies.” 

“I’m not lying to you, Stiles,” Derek promised softly. 

“But you kept your…promotion from me,” he accused breathlessly. 

“And you kept your asthma from me.” 

“I guess we’re…even, then,” Stiles wheezed, trying to sit up suddenly. Derek could sense his husband’s lungs tightening as he went into a relentless coughing fit, his worried eyes wishing they could soothe as he rubbed Stiles’ back with one hand and tried to help him find his inhaler with the other. 

“The angle,” Stiles wheezed between his coughs before he took a puff from the inhaler, shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have…laid down.” There was panic in his voice, the same kind that he heard that night just two months ago when Stiles had had to wake him in the middle of the night. He took in a few somewhat-steady breaths before launching back into the coughing fit. 

Derek opened the two back windows of the car to let fresh air inside before he let his hands support Stiles’ hunched body around his upper arms as he continued to cough. “Try your inhaler again,” Derek advised, but Stiles just shook his head as his body worked to get air, eyes closed as he concentrated. “Babe, you need to. I can sense that the first puff is working.” 

“It...is?” Stiles asked, surprised, panting as he turned to face Derek. “You…can…sense that?” 

“Yes,” Derek stated, watching as Stiles put the inhaler to his lips and took another puff. After a few more coughs, his breathing began to become more manageable. 

“How’d you…,” Stiles trailed, confused, still panting but gaining control of his breathing. 

“I don’t know,” Derek shrugged. “It’s just kind of been easier for me to sense things with you and Ize. Like yesterday, I ran into the house because I thought you were having an attack. I knew you where wheezing the second I turned onto Maple.” 

Stiles let the idea sit on his mind for a moment as his lungs relaxed from the medication. Finally, he sighed. “You were worried and I was just… too busy being mad at you,” he said, shaking his head, inhaler still in his hand. 

“To be honest, it didn’t really bother me. I was more concerned about your lungs than your outburst,” Derek admitted softly. 

“Then why did you come to bed so late?” 

“Because it took me a long time to get Isaac to unwind from the anxiety of watching you panic,” Derek explained. “And even after all of that, when I went to tuck him into bed, he asked me if I was sure you weren’t mad at him.” Derek sighed before continuing with, “I thought I’d calmed him down enough, but he wouldn’t let go of me when I tried to get him beneath the covers. He started his “I sowwy” rant and couldn’t stop crying. The treatment he’d just done probably wasn’t helping things; you know how wired it can sometimes make him. I’m not even sure how long I held him for. I tried singing to him and rubbing his back but eventually he just passed out from exhaustion.” 

Stiles covered his face with his hands when he realized the impact his behavior had had on his son, emotion spilling from him in the form of silent tears as he listened to Derek give him details from the night before. 

“Hey,” Derek soothed, trying to pry Stiles’ hands from his face. “You know that crying will just make your lungs worse.” 

“I don’t care about my lungs.” Stiles sniffled as he let his hands down and turned his face away from his husband. “I can’t believe I didn’t think about Ize.” 

“He was just confused, babe,” Derek tried. “He didn’t know what to make of your anxiety. I think that deep down he knows you could never be mad at him like that, that he just panicked because there was that small ounce of worry.” 

“I should’ve never gotten involved…in the PTA,” he sobbed. “I’m hurting you and…Isaac. I’m…making things _worse_. And I can’t…even speak in full sentences,” he wheezed breathlessly, weight of the situation sitting heavily on his shoulders. 

“You’re making yourself sick, Stiles,” Derek warned softly as he pulled his husband against him so that they were both sitting up, Derek’s back against the uncomfortable paneling of the door. “Take a deep breath.” 

“H-he thought I…that I was mad at _him_!” 

“Hey,” Derek soothed, rubbing a hand up and down Stiles’ arm. “He’s already forgotten. Didn’t you see how excited he was to see you at the plant sale?” 

“I couldn’t even hold him for that long. My arms got so tired,” Stiles sniffled guiltily. 

“He just misses you and I think that’s why he got so anxious so quickly last night.” 

“I can’t just back out of the PTA, though,” he whined, heart wishing he’d never taken it on in the first place. 

“You’re doing what you have to do,” Derek assured him. “I get it, Ize does, too. School year’s almost over, anyway, and when you’re finally done we can go on a nice, long vacation.” 

“We can go see Scott,” Stiles sniffled, calming down as he thought about the summer time. 

“Whatever you want, babe,” Derek smiled softly, watching as his husband’s eyelids closed and he curled up against his chest, still wheezing but lungs much calmer than before. “Whatever you need,” Derek finally whispered, taking a deep breath and wishing that Stiles would get some good news at work sometime soon. 


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for keeping up with _To Build a Home_! I have a few days off coming up so I'm hoping to wrap this story up soon and begin the sequel I have planned/began writing for the Stilinski-Hale family. Subscribe if you'd like to stay updated on all things TBH. And, as always, comments/reviews are greatly appreciated. Kudos, too! :)

“Where the fuck are my keys?” Stiles grumbled as he stormed through the kitchen, Derek just stirring the honey into his first cup of coffee, eyes still ridden with sleep.

“Aren’t they on the table in the hallway?” 

“If I’m asking you, they’re obviously not!” 

“That’s the last place I saw them,” he shrugged, not awake enough to deal with Stressed Stiles; the only reason he was up so early on a Saturday that he didn’t have work was to get Isaac off to his game by nine o’clock. 

“They couldn’t have just walked off by themselves!” 

“Obviously,” he mumbled before sipping from his coffee cup. 

“Yeah, obviously,” Stiles sneered, foot tapping before he began to grind his teeth in anxiety. 

“Maybe Isaac took them,” Derek proposed, more as a joke than anything else. Stiles had just rolled his eyes, turned, and walked out of the kitchen. 

x 

Nearly a minute later, the family of three stood in the middle of the living room, Isaac’s hands wringing together in front of him as he focused on his feet. 

“Isaac,” Stiles asked sternly, “did you take Daddy’s keys?” 

“N-no,” he answered after a pause, voice wavering. 

“I was supposed to be at the book sale ten minutes ago and I need my keys. Do you know where they are?” Stiles asked with a warning tone. 

Isaac blinked, eyes now glued to something behind Stiles, and bit his lip, unsure of what to say or do. His fingers flew up and into his mouth, a nervous habit that Derek had come to know as an overt sign that the child was anxious. 

“Daddy is not playing around right now. Go and get my keys, Isaac,” Stiles commanded, stress of the situation building up in his shoulder muscles, causing his whole body to feel tight. When his son didn’t respond after a few seconds, he yelled, “Isaac!” 

The four-year-old didn’t even flinch and at that Derek grew nervous; the lack of movement and eye contact reminded him of the way he’d dealt with policemen pulling him out of history class his sophomore year of high school and talking in soft, empathetic tones in the hallway. 

“Do you remember where you put the keys, baby?” Derek asked softly as he squatted down a few feet in front of his son. Isaac just stared past him, unwilling to respond. He stood frozen in the paw print pajamas Gampa had gotten him for Christmas, acting as if he couldn’t hear what his parents were saying. 

Dissociation, Derek thought as he recalled one of the pamphlets he’d read at Dr. Galler’s office when they’d had to wait while she finished with a patient; “A defense mechanism in which a person separates themselves from awareness during an event,” the brightly colored paper had read. 

Stiles was growing impatient. “Don’t you dare baby him right now!” 

“Can’t you just take your spare car key for now?” Derek asked, irritated. 

“That would be a great idea except for the fact that my room key is _on_ that lanyard and I have to get _into_ my classroom, which is where I was _supposed_ to be at eight this morning but now it’s eight fifteen and I have people sitting in the parking lot _waiting_ for me and calling my phone non-stop!” 

“Isn’t the janitor there?” 

“I don’t have time for this!” Stiles panicked, exhaling forcefully. “You have one minute to get the keys and bring them here,” he directed at Isaac, his knees bending so that he could meet the child’s eyes directly. “Do you understand?” he asked harshly, enunciating each word. 

Still, Isaac stared off, not even blinking once until Stiles grabbed his wrist and pulled him towards the stairs, the toddler finally reacting by attempting to pull away. 

“No!” he screamed, snapping out of his daze and gripping his daddy’s wrist with his other hand to try and wrench his arm away. “No!” he repeated as he felt himself being pulled into the hallway, feet slipping as he moved from the carpet to the wooden flooring. 

“Stiles!” Derek yelled, rushing over to separate his husband and son. “He’s…,” Derek started to say, wanting to alert Stiles to the child’s wheezing but pausing when he realized that Isaac was fine. His lungs were managing well despite the sudden sobbing and fast breathing, and Derek realized that it wasn’t a valid excuse. For once, Isaac’s asthma wasn’t in the picture, the thought paralyzing him for a moment before Isaac slapping Stiles’ leg repeatedly caused him to intervene. 

“I didn’t w-want Daddy to weave,” Isaac sobbed once he was in Derek’s arms, tears falling down his cheeks. 

“I know, baby, but you can’t just take things and hide them,” he soothed, feeling like he was doing something wrong by holding him. “And you can’t hit people just when you’re upset with them.” 

“I wanted Daddy to come to my g-game,” he cried, little legs tight around Derek’s middle. 

“Put him down, Derek!” 

“He’s hysterical, Stiles!” Derek shot back, feeling like he was in the middle of his husband and son. “You scared him!” 

“Because he knows he did something wrong and now he’s in trouble for it!” Stiles yelled, voice echoing through the house. Isaac continued to sob heavily, sound of his father’s voice making him grip Derek’s shirt just a little more tightly. 

“We’re not going to get anywhere with him until we calm him down!” 

“Isaac, I need my keys,” Stiles said tersely. 

“I don’t k-know where I putted them!” he sobbed. “I don’t remember!” 

“Are they upstairs?” Stiles fished impatiently, getting no response. “Downstairs?” 

“I sowwy,” Isaac finally sobbed, the force causing him to hiccup. “I sowwy!” 

“Can’t you just take the spare-”

“I’m the only one with keys, Derek!” Stiles explained, exasperated. “Fuck, I don’t have time for this!” he yelled, pulling open the hallway closet and looking beneath the mess of shoes for any signs of his lanyard. 

“I s-sowwy!” Isaac continued, fingers back in his mouth, spit stringy and hanging down the front of his red, tear-stained face. Derek could feel it soaking through his pajama shirt, the stickiness cold and uncomfortable. “I sowwy!” 

“You,” Stiles panted in anger as he rose from is squatted position in front of the closet and pointed at Isaac, “are in big trouble!” 

“I didn’t m-mean t-to!” the child sobbed, more drool dripping from his chin and connecting to Derek’s shirt. 

Stiles took a deep breath at that and ran a hand through his hair to calm himself down, realizing that his son really didn’t understand why his parents were so upset over a set of hidden keys. Isaac had never been taught something as simple as what “I’m sorry” really meant, and it wasn’t until just now that he’d even been emotionally able to grapple with the concept of accidental versus intentional. They’d never really yelled at him before, let alone talked about punishments. 

“That’s the thing, Isaac,” Stiles sighed in exhaustion, letting his arm drop. He took a deep breath to try and rid himself of the anger he knew had scared his son just moments earlier. “You _did_ want to take my keys and you did hit me, so that means you _meant_ to.” 

“B-but I said I was sowwy,” he cried, fingers still in his mouth. 

“I know, honey, but that doesn’t make it okay,” Derek added softly, trying to work off of what his husband had said. “You still did something wrong.” 

“I don’t w-wanna be in twuuble!” Isaac cried, turning his head away from his fathers. 

“It doesn’t feel so great, does it?” Stiles finally asked, going into teacher-mode; he made sure to keep his voice from rising this time, purposely keeping a small distance between them so as not to tip Isaac over the edge. 

“N-no,” he whimpered, the pain in his voice one that Stiles and Derek knew was actually somewhat-healthy for once. “Don’t make me be in twubble!” 

“You’re going to have to sit in time-out for a little while for hiding the keys and hitting me, Isaac,” Stiles explained. 

“No!” Isaac sobbed, kicking his legs in Derek’s arms to try and escape. “No time-out!” 

x 

It took Derek a good ten minutes to wrestle Isaac into sitting in a free corner of the living room, the child attempting to crawl out at every available moment. Stiles was running up and down the stairs, searching for his keys so that he could get to the school. 

“Daddy!” Isaac screeched when he saw Stiles dart past the hallway on his way back into the kitchen. “Da-ddy!” 

“Five more minutes and you can come out and apologize to Daddy,” Derek explained, heart breaking at the sight of Isaac so red-faced and distraught. The three-year-old had just wanted Stiles to spend some time with his daddy, hadn’t known that the consequence of hiding the keys would be his first real reprimanding. And while Derek didn’t condone the hitting and understood why Isaac needed to be punished, he couldn’t hide the fact that he was somewhat angry with Stiles for using physical force to get Isaac to admit to taking the keys. 

“I s-said s-sowwy!” Isaac sobbed, fingers filling his mouth as the spit continued to drizzle down onto his now soaked pajama shirt. The toddler repeated those words like a mantra for the next few minutes, his focus on them keeping him busy while Derek watched the numbers on the cable box change. Eventually, Isaac’s cries became small hiccups and sniffles, sticky hands pulling his legs against his chest while he caught his breath. 

It was the first time Derek realized that not every outburst would affect Isaac’s lungs; if he could cry like that for a half hour straight, there was no doubt in his mind that they were stronger than they’d ever been before. 

“I’m just gonna have to take my spare set and call the janitor in to open up,” Stiles sighed as he entered the room after an exhausting fifteen minute search of the house, cheeks bright red from the stress of the morning. “Make sure you give Ize a treatment before his game; he’s been giving me a hard time lately because he says he feels well, but the pollen count is through the roof today and I don’t think I can deal with any more surprises.” 

“Will you be home for dinner?” Derek asked, wishing for things to return to some kind of normal. 

“Don’t count on it,” he said, shaking his head as he looked at his watch. “I really gotta go.” 

“I sowwy, Daddy,” Isaac sniffled from the corner, face blotchy and eyes red from crying. Stiles’ breath caught in his throat at how upset his son looked, the guilt pouring over him and making it hard to breathe. 

“Thank you, baby,” Stiles whispered as he bent down in front of Isaac and held his arms out. The child leapt into them, nuzzling his snotty nose against his shirt, something that surprised Derek. He’d expected him to pull away and roll into a little ball of fear, but he hadn’t. 

“I know that you’re sorry,” Stiles continued. “Just please don’t take my keys again, okay? And no more hitting. We use our words, not our hands.” 

“Otay,” Isaac nodded, still sniffling. 

“Be good for Papa today.” 

“Mmhmm,” Isaac hummed, nodding his head. 

“I love you, baby boy. I really, really do.” 

“I wuv you too, Daddy,” Isaac said, finally looking up, the brightness in his blue eyes returning now that his tears had stopped. 

“Do I get a kiss?” Stiles asked with a small smile, the child giving him one right on his cheek. When it came time to separate, Stiles could feel Isaac’s arms slowly slide away from him, the guilt of everything that had happened in the last half hour returning as he locked the front door behind him and went for the car, tears springing to his own eyes as he backed out of the driveway. 


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Over 4,000 words in this chapter update! The next few chapters are mostly written and just need some revision and editing. Hopefully I can get them up soon and move on to the sequel, which I am extremely excited about!! Lots of changes for the Stilinski-Hale family to come. 
> 
> Also, I somehow forgot to thank my alpha reader Casey in the chapter 21 notes, so I owe her a HUGE apology. She does so much work on this story and without her I probably would have abandoned early on because I thought I wouldn't be able to pull it off. And also a great big thank you to all of YOU who have been leaving kudos, favoriting, and commenting! I'm so touched to know you are all loving this story as much as I am!

The true anger didn’t start building within Derek until he was alone and staring at a still sniffling Isaac in the corner of the quiet living room, both of them still in their pajamas, stomachs growling in the absence of their usual homemade Saturday chocolate chip pancakes. 

“Daddy’s mad at me,” Isaac began to cry a few seconds after the front door had closed despite having apologized and given his father a goodbye kiss. 

“Do you remember what I said the other night? That when grown-ups get stressed they say things they don’t mean?” Derek asked, Isaac nodding from his place on the carpet. “Well, sometimes they do things they don’t mean, too,” Derek found himself explaining as he took his son in his arms and stood up, rocking from foot to foot, his hand rubbing Isaac’s back in gentle circles. “Daddy was angry but not at you, baby.” 

“B-but he y-yelled and I had a t-time-out!” Isaac cried as he held onto Derek like a baby koala, legs tight around his middle and hands gripping his thin blue t-shirt. 

“I know, Ize,” he said, kissing the child’s blonde curls. “Daddy was disappointed in you because you misbehaved, but you apologized and had a time-out, so now he’s really just mad about work. He hugged you afterwards and told you how much he loved you, remember?” 

“Yeah, b-but I don’t know where I putted the keys and he’s gonna be mad about that when he gets home!” he sobbed, the shoulder of Derek’s shirt becoming wet with tears, snot, and spit. 

“Don’t worry about the keys right now. We’ll find them,” he assured Isaac. 

“Pwomise?” 

“I can’t promise that, but I can promise that Daddy isn’t really mad at you.” 

“But he was screamin’ and I maded him late!” 

“You didn’t make him late, Ize. And he was screaming because he’s very busy with work right now, not because of anything you did. Trust me, he’s much more upset with himself than he is at you.” 

“At hisself?” Isaac sniffled, confused. 

“He’s mad because he wants to be able to come to your games but he can’t because of work. Just like when I have to go away to do business; I always wish I was home with you and Daddy instead,” Derek explained softly, still rocking the child to calm him. 

“Daddy’s stwessed?” 

“Super stressed, but he still shouldn’t have yelled like he did. You didn’t deserve that, Ize, even for taking his keys.” 

“Is that why he was gettin’ sick? ‘Cause he’s stwessed?” Isaac asked as he looked up at Derek, concern in his bright blue eyes. 

Derek narrowed his eyes at Isaac, ready to tell him that Stiles was fine, but stopped before he could speak. Because Stiles had been wheezing, the whistle audible with every breath, his pale cheeks splattered with the telltale crimson that hallmarked each of his asthma flares. There’d been no buzzing of the nebulizer earlier that morning, not even a five-minute treatment like the ones he did on busy mornings after a rough night where he’d sit on the closed toilet seat with the misting mouthpiece as Derek shaved from the sink. The steam from Derek’s showers, Stiles said, helped open him up, and on mornings following nights in which he’d suffered mid-night attacks, the two would hop in together, Derek massaging his husband’s aching shoulders that had worked so hard to help him breathe the night before. 

“Yeah, baby,” Derek said as he took Isaac into the kitchen to make breakfast, sighing as a small pit of worry found its place in his gut. “That’s why.” 

“I made him stwessed and now he’s sick!” Isaac began to sob again, Derek having to take a deep breath before approaching the situation for a third time; he hated that he’d been left to deal with the aftermath of that morning, left to handle Isaac emotionally after what was arguably one of the harder moments they’d experienced as a family. 

“Ize, that’s not true, honey. You didn’t stress him out,” Derek promised as he rocked Isaac in the kitchen, knowing that if he tried to put him in his chair that he’d refuse to let go. “Daddy does that to himself because he’s a perfectionist.” 

“What’s that?” Isaac sniffled. 

“It means he wants to be perfect at everything.” 

“You always say its good to try and be perfect,” Isaac said, tears stopping as he tried to think through what his papa had told him. 

“I know, and that’s true. You always want to try your best.” 

“Never let the fear of stwiking out keep you from playing the game,” Isaac chanted, right index finger pointing at the air with each word as he spoke. 

“Right,” Derek chuckled, a smile coming across his face at how much Isaac was becoming a little bit of both of his fathers. “But sometimes you don’t have time to be perfect at everything and you have to let some things go so that you can focus on the more important things.” 

Isaac’s face twisted in thought, grip on his father’s shirt lessening as they stood together in the kitchen. Derek wondered if he’d gone past the point of his preschooler’s comprehension, was about to make a comment about substituting cereal for pancakes to cut back on time, when Isaac opened his mouth. 

“What’s Daddy gonna let go of?” Isaac asked, Derek left blinking at his son as he tried to come up with an answer. They’d been waiting for the school year to end, for the stress to resolve itself without them having to do anything about it, but it became increasingly apparent at that moment that waiting wasn’t going to work; something, at some point, was going to give, and Derek was afraid to know what, exactly, that something was. 

He knew Stiles couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ , just up and leave; though he was stressed about things at home, the real source of his stress was work, mostly notably the PTA position he’d signed onto after another teacher had resigned. And that stress made him stress about not being home enough, which made his overall stress level something that even Derek couldn’t see himself handling well. How Stiles had made it this far without falling flat on his face, that morning’s outburst excluded, he wasn’t sure. 

“I don’t know, Ize,” Derek finally sighed. “But we have about forty-five minutes to get you breakfast, a treatment, and dressed for your t-ball game,” he said as he looked at the clock on the stove. 

“I don’t need a tweatment,” Isaac smiled, cheeks still splotchy and eyes a bit swollen from crying. “See?” He took a deep breath in and let it out slowly, then another, smile still on his lips when he was finished. Derek couldn’t help but smile at that, either. 

“I know that you’re breathing better but we have to do your medicine to keep your lungs open in case your allergies are really bad today.” 

Isaac frowned and looked down. 

“I’ll read a book,” Derek prompted, hoping to get a reaction from Isaac; he shook his head as he stared down at the tile from his place in his papa’s arms. “We can watch the beginning of Nemo,” he tried, unsure as to why Isaac was suddenly giving him a hard time. The three-year-old didn’t usually say anything about not wanting to do his treatments, had even reminded him two weeks ago when they almost missed one. 

“What’s going on, Ize? Why don’t you want to take your medicine?” he asked softly. 

The child shrugged, body stiffening in Derek’s arms. 

“You can tell me. I won’t be mad,” Derek promised. 

“No one else on my team has asthma,” Isaac said after a few moments, Derek’s heart sinking. He’d hoped this conversation, and ones similar, wouldn’t happen for a while. Of all the days, he thought. 

“Maybe there is and you don’t even know,” Derek said, attempting to make his son feel better. 

Isaac shook his head. “Daddy made me take my ‘haler at pwactice last week and everyone watched me.” This was news to Derek; he wondered why Stiles had had to give it to him and why he hadn’t said anything about it afterwards. There wasn’t time for that though now that their conversation had taken up a full eight minutes of time they didn’t have. 

“Lots of kids have asthma, Ize,” Derek explained as he carried him upstairs to get the machine ready, figuring they’d grab McDonalds breakfast on the way to the game to make-up for lost time. It wasn’t the healthiest, but it would have to do. “And peanut allergies. Remember my friend from work at the baseball game? He can’t eat them, either, so I’m betting there’s someone on your team that’s just like you.” 

“I don’t fhink so,” he sighed. “Peter’s mom boughted cookies for everyone and I was the onwy one that couldn’t have it ‘cause they coulda had nuts.” 

“Daddy packed you a safe cookie, though,” Derek reminded him. 

Isaac put his head on his papa’s shoulder, not wanting to talk about the topic anymore. Derek filed it in the back of his mind to be brought up at another time, the thought that maybe Stiles had forgotten Isaac’s safe snack at practice the other day making him feel for his kid. “Feeling different” was one of the topics he’d seen other parents of children with asthma and allergies post about often in online forums, and he imagined himself scrolling through them and actually reading to gain some insight the next time he went on his computer. 

“Will you read the knight book?” Isaac asked after they settled into the rocking chair, one of Derek’s arms reaching for a packet from the box of medicine. 

“Of course,” Derek smiled, the child hopping off of his lap to grab _Peter, the Knight with Asthma_ from his basket, its tattered cover and pages proof that it was one of Isaac’s favorites. 

“This is my Papa book,” Isaac told him as he opened to the first page and looked up at Derek, the three-year-old still smiling as he let Derek strap the mask over his face before the two leaned back in the chair, cuddled in pajamas with one of their favorite books, and read together. 

x

 _I’m so angry with myself over what happened with Isaac this morning_ Stiles texted around noon, just as Isaac’s game was starting. Derek sighed inwardly and stared at the phone, debating whether to respond or not. 

Derek typed: _It’s fine_ , a lie. _Just did Ize’s treatment and got him ready for his game. We’re here now._ He read it over and quickly erased it, sending _Yeah, well, it hasn’t exactly been a party on my end, either_ instead. He wanted his husband to know how upset he was about everything that had happened, from the attitude Stiles had thrown him as he was about to take his first sip of coffee on his day off to the way he’d pulled the front door shut so that it didn’t slam but was firm enough to express his frustration. 

_You could be a little more supportive here._

_I could_ Derek typed on instinct, the anger that used to fill him returning so quickly that he couldn’t even stop himself before his thumb hit send. Then, he added _But I’m not going to be._

There was a pause in the conversation and Derek imagined Stiles taking a break during the book sale behind one of the metal rolling shelves, eyes watering as he read the texts appearing on the screen of his phone. If he knew Stiles, and he did, he knew that the burden of what had happened in the living room would forever be on his mind, one of the situations he replayed and tried to fix long after it had happened. There wasn’t anything he could do, Derek was sure, to make-up for it beyond apologizing to Isaac again and making sure there wasn’t a repeat of the incident in the future. 

_How is he?_

_Now you’re worried about him?_

_Oh, come on. That’s not even fair!_

_This morning wasn’t fair for Isaac, so I’m not really concerned with whether or not it’s fair for you._

_You can be a real asshole sometimes._

_I’ve heard that before._

_I’m starting to feel like I’m in high school again and you’re bashing my head into the steering wheel of my jeep._

_Good._

_Seriously?_

Derek turned his phone off and slid it into his pocket, jaw tight with irritation as he watched Isaac run to catch a rolling whiffle ball. He walked over to the metal chain-linked fencing around the small field and leaned a pair of crossed arms atop it. Isaac was smiling as he scooped the plastic ball into his glove, the one that was too big for his little hand but he loved practicing with anyway. 

It made him think back to the end of April when he and Ize had set up a makeshift field in the backyard between the three scattered trees that made mowing an absolute nightmare and practiced the different positions on the field. 

“That’s it!” Derek had yelled happily after Isaac swung the plastic yellow bat towards the platform and caused the white whiffle ball to go airborne for the first time. “Run to first base!” he’d coached, pointing to one of the Frisbees he’d placed in a diamond formation across their backyard. “Keep going! Second! Third!” 

“Home run!” Isaac had cheered as he jumped onto the last Frisbee, arms pumping the air excitedly. 

“So proud of you!” Derek smiled as he lifted Isaac in his arms, listening to the slight whistle in his son’s breathing but knowing that it would settle down on its own in time. 

“I did it, Papa!” Isaac laughed breathlessly, lifting the LA Dodgers baseball cap Derek had bought him to reveal a huge smile. “I hitted the ball!” 

“All we need to work on now is catching.” 

“Keep your eye…on the ball,” Isaac told him as he wagged a little finger to each word, taking a break mid-sentence to get a deep breath of air. 

“Ah, someone’s been paying attention to Daddy’s comments at the TV during games,” Derek laughed, taking Isaac’s cap and putting the bill so that it was facing backwards. 

“Goovno prowvda!” 

“Okay, _that one_ we need to keep to ourselves,” Derek warned, though it was hard to keep a straight face because he couldn’t stop laughing at the fact that his son was spewing Polish curses. 

“But Daddy says it all the time when thewe’s a game on!” Isaac argued. “What’s it mean?” 

“Why don’t you ask Daddy,” Derek insisted, carrying him into the house for lunch. 

Stiles nearly dropped the coffee mug that was against his lips when he heard Isaac ask, practically choking as he tried to swallow the hot sip he’d just taken. 

“Our son’s becoming bilingual,” Derek explained with Stiles’ usual level of sarcasm. “Isn’t it great?” 

“Ize, baby. You can’t repeat that, okay?” Stiles said as he wiped the coffee he’d sputtered on his shirt with a paper towel. 

“Goovno prowvda?” 

“Yes,” Stiles laughed, trying to be serious but failing miserably. 

“But Gampa says it too, so why can’t I say it?” 

“Because they aren’t very nice words,” Stiles explained, pulling his shirt off so that he could try and get the coffee stain out before it set, his pale, freckled torso catching Derek’s eye. “Remember when we talked about using nice words?” he continued, grabbing a new shirt from the basket of clean, yet-to-be-folded clothes in the basket near the basement door. Isaac nodded, thinking back to when Daddy had given him a stern talking to in the car after he repeated a line from a TV show that was off limits. 

“What are you looking at?” Stiles asked Derek just before he pulled the shirt over his head, eyes flirty as one end of his lip turned up into a cocky smile. 

“All of that plant sale work has really paid off,” Derek joked, setting Isaac in his usual seat at the table. 

“You should see me after book sale season,” Stiles nodded to him as he adjusted the hem of his new, clean shirt, giving his husband a quick wink before grabbing two bowls the mac and cheese he’d whipped up for lunch and setting them on the table. 

Later that night, long after the whiffle ball and tee and mit had been returned to the garage, dishes from dinner washed and put away, Stiles and Derek had ended up intertwined on the couch beneath a light blanket watching _The Big Bang Theory_ , Stiles looking over at him, eyes smiling. 

“What?” Derek chuckled, loving the way his husband’s eyes were a deep hazel in the dim lighting. 

“Nothing,” he smiled, shaking his head. 

“It’s never just ‘nothing’ with you,” Derek said, raising an eyebrow, lips curving on both ends. 

“I was just watching you with Isaac in the backyard today is all,” he crooned. 

“That’s all? You’re sure?” Derek prompted jokingly. 

“And it might have been kind of cute,” he shrugged, cuddling closer to Derek. 

“Just kind of?” 

“Mhmm.” 

“Was the Polish cursing, too?” 

“Honestly? Yeah,” he laughed, Derek smiling back at him. “Kinda reminded me of my mom; she used to say that it was the only cursing I was allowed to do because she wanted me to carry a piece of my Polish heritage or whatever.” Stiles’ smile fell a little as he looked down and away from his husband, the pain of missing his mother obvious by the way he’d grown quiet. 

“You’ve been missing her a lot lately,” Derek stated softly, Stiles nodding before he lay his head on his husband’s chest. Instinctively, Stiles reached for his husband’s hand, their fingers lacing together. 

“Her birthday’s this week,” he whispered, hand tightening around Derek’s. 

“She’d be proud of you, you know,” Derek whispered back, kissing his husband softly on the side of his head. “Especially for the way you handle Isaac. I wish she were here to see that.” 

Stiles closed his eyes and pursed his lips, shaking his head a little. “Please don’t,” he begged. 

“It’s okay to talk about her.” 

“You don’t talk about your mom,” Stiles said, and he had had a point. 

“Because you and Ize are my family now,” Derek explained. 

“You don’t miss them?” Stiles asked, even though he knew the answer. 

“Of course I miss them; it’s just really painful and I don’t want it to always interfere with my time with you guys.” 

Stiles stayed quiet for a few moments, Derek wishing his husband would break the silence growing between them. “What else is on your mind?” Derek asked, eyebrows narrowing. 

“Just thinking about how you’re the only person I’d want to raise Isaac with,” Stiles admitted, finally looking up with a small smile, his eyes meeting Derek’s again. The conversation stopped there, the two falling asleep on the couch with the theme song of another episode of _Big Bang_ playing in the background, both men smiling as the comforting notion of home hung in the air. 

Derek took a deep breath and smiled to himself as he focused back on Isaac at his t-ball game, noticing the smile on his son’s face as the teams swapped places. Though things had been somewhat stressful lately and his anger towards Stiles was still running strong, he could feel all of it starting to slowly slip away, the weight of that morning just a little less heavy within him as he imagined them handling their next true crisis, whatever it would be, knowing wholeheartedly that the bond of their family would be what would hold them together and carry them through. 

He hadn’t had that kind of faith in any of his relationships since the fire, and he was surprised that it had taken him this long to realize that Stiles had always put his own anger aside to do what was best for Derek when he was in need. Derek flashed back to the night in the hospital when he’d woken in the elevator, bloodied and mostly broken, the pain searing through his abdomen almost too much to bear. It had been Stiles who’d hovered over him, begging for him to wake despite the danger his position posed to his own wellbeing. And then there was the night six months before at that club with the mountain ash when Derek had thought Scott was dying, Stiles the true hero as he managed to inject Jackson with ketamine and spread the black ash Deaton had handed him earlier that day. 

Derek had always thought of Stiles as not having an interest in him until college, the late night Facebook chat sessions and drunk dials proof that they were actually friends beyond any situation involving Scott. But now, as he thought about all of those times in which they’d gone through the trauma of supernatural battles together, he realized that their connection had always been there, sparked, at first, by their connection to Scott, but growing ever so slightly beyond that as the years wore on. The love had been in Stiles’ eyes that night as he yelled into Derek’s face, the elevator stuck between floors in its shaft. They were wide and watering and so focused, the pain in them and the panting coming from Stiles having flooded Derek’s senses, causing his own eyes to snap open. 

That was the only reason he’d woken up that night when everything in his plan had gone horribly wrong, why he hadn’t been another casualty as his alpha status hung in the balance. Stiles had kept him alive then, physically, but Derek knew it had grown to be so much more than that in recent years. He wasn’t sure when it had happened, but there was one thing Derek knew to be true no matter what they’d been through or what was coming their way: Stiles was the glue that kept him together emotionally, the reason he felt love in an otherwise colorless world. And Isaac, sweet baby Isaac who was kicking his legs crossed at the ankles beneath the wooden bench behind the fence, had made their bond even stronger, creating a true sense of family for Derek that he hadn’t had in so long. 

He hadn’t even known he needed it, that link to others beyond just Stiles. He wasn’t even sure if he could be a good father when Isaac had come into his life, either, but Stiles (and Isaac) had gotten him through that, guiding him to see that he was capable of fostering growth in others. He loved them more than he remembered loving his own family, something he’d never outwardly admitted; he’d been so young then, even at 16, his parents now living in his heart only as memories. And Laura, though her death had been recent, was something he liked keeping tucked away in the slate grey lock box at the top of his closet. Pain was something he didn’t like feeling in his every day life if he could help it, and Stiles and Isaac were often just what he needed to help him do just that. 

Stiles, who’d he just slandered via text message, who was probably having a near-meltdown as he tried to lead the book sale and keep profits up. He couldn’t just text _I’m sorry_ , though. It wouldn’t be enough, but it also would undo all of the work Derek had done to try and convey his true feelings on the matter. Being able to feel and have an opinion, especially when Isaac was involved, was part of being a father. Part of being a family. He’d give it a few more hours, he decided, before he said anything else, afraid to make the situation worse by flooding Stiles’ phone with more mixed messages. 

So he watched Isaac turn around from his place on the bench to wave at his papa, a true smile coming across Derek’s face as he waved back, phone still off and in his back pocket as he let a little more of the anger in his fists slip away, their grip on the metal fence in front of him loosening. 


	23. Sequel Teaser (Happy Halloween!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! I wrote a little Halloween snippet that will be a chapter much, much later in the sequel, but i haven't had time to post anything because I've been working and in the middle of moving, so thank you for bearing with me!
> 
> I'm sure you'll have tons of questions after this post, so hopefully I can answer some beforehand without giving too much away. First off, the rest of "To Build a Home" (which is already over 50,000 words/novel length, so I can probably italicize it!) will be about 28 chapters. 23B, if AO3 bears with me, will be the next "true" chapter; just a few more fixes and it'll be up! I've written *most* of the next chapters, they just need to be edited/beta-ed/perfected to make sure everything ends cohesively. Then, the sequel will begin!
> 
> I hope you enjoy this snippet (which is a little ways into the sequel) and have a Happy Halloween!

“But I wanna be Balto!” Isaac yelled, stomping his right foot with each word as Stiles navigated the family’s shopping cart through the Halloween aisle at Target. Max, who was sitting up in the seat of the cart, focused her eyes on Isaac as she sucked on a pumpkin pacifier, her little hands clutching the handle that she shared with Stiles. 

“No stomping,” Stiles warned, pointing a finger at his son as he tossed a package of plastic spiders into the cart. “You know better than that.” Isaac made his grumpy face, the one that neither Derek or Stiles had seen until after Max had arrived, his tiny face twisting as he locked his jaw and jutted his bottom lip out.

“You said last week that you wanted to be Iron Man,” Derek explained as he pulled the costume bag from the rack on the wall, trying to keep the tone light with the hope that it would bring Isaac out of his mood.

“I wanna be Balto!” Isaac yelled, this time much louder, both hands in tight fists, the force of his outburst causing him to cough. A mother, father, and their two sons at the other end of the aisle stopped discussing costume options on the wall and watched as Isaac sunk to his tush on the white tile floor, tears a torrent as he whined a steady stream of mumbles related to “wanna be Balto”.

“It’s the steroids,” Derek whispered to his husband, running a hand through his hair as he tried to block out the disapproving thoughts of the other family that were trying to make their way into his head. 

“I’m not doing this every time he gets put on prednisone and doesn’t get what he wants,” Stiles sighed, pushing the cart away on purpose. “Just…follow my lead.” Derek nodded, the rest of the Stilinski-Hale family making it a quarter of the way down the aisle before Isaac cried out again.

“Dad-dy!” he cried, the cart still moving as he was ignored. “Pa-pa! No!” Isaac was up in seconds, running down the aisle and clinging to Derek’s leg with one arm, the other hitting in anger. “No! No! No!” he screeched as he beat his fist against his papa, tantrum suddenly moving to an entirely new level. Max began to cry, Isaac’s screaming having overwhelmed her werebaby senses, orange pacifier falling from her mouth and hanging by its clip on her shirt.

“Hey!” Derek yelled, hand on Isaac’s arm in a not-too-tight grip, the action and boom of his voice reducing Isaac to a series of sniffles as he sunk down once again, bottom lip trembling out of fear. “We use our words, not our hands,” he explained as he let go, tone softer but stern. 

“B-but I wanna be Balto!” Isaac tested with a whine, throwing his arms down so that they hit the floor. The other family was attempting to look away, but Derek knew they were still listening by the few thoughts that were managing to get past the mental block he’d tried to put up.

“Stand up and apologize to Papa,” Stiles said as he took Max into his arms to calm her down, fetching her pacifier and trying to coax it back into her mouth. “Now.”

“No!” Isaac yelled, eyes focused on the floor.

“Excuse me?” Derek asked with a low growl, Isaac sitting for just a few moments more before standing up and hanging his head low, fingers going for his mouth. “I sowwy, Papa,” he whispered, the growl having had its desired effect on not only Isaac, but the family from down the aisle who was now rounding the corner towards the freezer section

“Thank you. Now, no more hands, okay?”

“I thought it wouldn’t hurt you,” he explained quietly, voice tinged with guilt. “I sowwy!”

“It didn’t hurt my leg, but it hurt my heart,” Derek said softly as he met Isaac at his level, hand moving to his chest. “Because I could feel your anger. It made Max upset, too. Remember how Daddy and I told you we can feel when you guys are having trouble breathing?” Isaac nodded, looking up at his papa. “It’s just like that.”

“I just wanted to be Balto,” Isaac sniffled, Stiles pulling a baby wipe out of the diaper bag to rid his son of the tears and snot that had accumulated from his carrying-on. Max was still in his arms, calmer now as she clung to him while he leaned over.

“You can be a wolf, Ize,” Stiles explained, squatting down in front of Isaac and wiping his nose. “But you could have asked nicely instead of throwing a fit.”

“You said you wanted everyone in the family to be super heroes ‘cause then we could all be someone different and still be a family and I didn’t want you to be mad!” he cried, tears sliding down his cheeks again. “I didn’t want you and Papa to think I didn’t want to be a family!” Derek looked over and met Stiles’ eyes at that, the two sighing in tandem at the thought that Isaac was having yet another meltdown regarding their recent change in number of family members.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thanks to everyone for sticking with TBH and to Casey for always reading/editing even when she's busy! Here's the next chapter. :) Please comment/review and leave kudos! I love hearing what you guys think!

“Daddy!” Isaac yelled happily as he ran towards the sound of the front door opening, a heavy bag dropping to the floor along with a set of what had to be Stiles’ spare keys. Derek’s jaw tightened as he put a lid over a pot of brown rice back in the kitchen and thought about how Isaac had begged him on the way home from his game to drive to the grocery story and pick up tortillas, beans, and salsa as a means of apologizing to Stiles for what had happened that morning; Derek hadn’t really agreed with Isaac’s idea, but he’d had to go food shopping anyway. 

“We’re making burritos ‘cause they’re your favorite!” Isaac explained excitedly, his little arms wrapped tightly around Stiles’ neck in a hug. “And I gotsta say sowwy and you always say the best way to say sowwy is to show it not just say it.” 

“That sounds great, baby,” Stiles wheezed with a small, forced smile as Isaac grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the kitchen at a too-quick pace that left Stiles even more breathless than he’d been when he’d walked through the door. 

“Hey, you guys didn’t…have to wait to eat. I told you I’d be home…late,” he said as he tried to catch his breath, waiting to see if Derek would respond to either his words or his struggle for air. 

“Isaac, can you please grab me the lettuce from the bottom drawer of the fridge?” Derek asked, ignoring Stiles completely, their son occupied for a moment as he pulled the big stainless steel door open with two hands. Finally, Derek mumbled, “I don’t want to talk about this morning right now,” when Isaac was out of earshot. 

“That’s…fine,” Stiles sighed, leaning one hand on the dark emerald granite counter for balance. “I get it.” That morning’s events rushed back to him, the arguing and Isaac’s insistent crying and tone of the text messages from Derek forcing the grip on his lungs to pull tighter. It wasn’t long before he was breathing in short pants, the ability to keep his level of stress down wavering now that he didn’t have anything to keep him busy and preoccupied. 

“You okay?” Derek asked softly as he looked up and stirred the pot of beans, watching as his husband’s eyes filled with tears and his lips pursed like he was trying too hard to hold something back. 

“No,” Stiles finally whispered when he had the air to do it, sniffling as he pulled his inhaler from his pocket and shook it. 

“Go take a treatment. I’ll finish dinner,” Derek offered softly, knowing that was what he really needed; the attitude, the one that had tried to come out as he’d started talking to Stiles had been pushed aside, the wheeze coming from his husband enough to make him worry instead. A part of him was still angry, but he figured he’d deal with that later, when Isaac was asleep and he and Stiles could talk alone. 

“Daddy sick?” Isaac asked nervously as he saw Stiles take a quick puff of medicine, the word ‘treatment’ having piqued his attention. 

“I’m okay, baby,” Stiles lied before taking a second puff. “Just having a…hard day.” 

“I can read to you while you do a tweatment!” Isaac said excitedly as Derek took the bag of lettuce from his hands. “It’ll make you feew better!” He was practically jumping, hands clasped together and eyes happy as he thought about helping his daddy. 

Stiles just shook his head and closed his eyes tightly to focus on getting a decent lungful of air; it was pointless, though, because he was starting to feel dizzy, and that was that signal that he’d hit the point of no return in his attack. 

“Der,” he wheezed anxiously, both hands, one with the inhaler beneath it, now leaning heavily on the granite. He tried to look up but his lungs were collapsing despite all of the medication he’d taken that day, chest moving rapidly as he tried desperately to get a hold on his breathing. 

“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” Derek whispered softly as he took his husband’s weight in his arms and helped him to the couch, Stiles’ wheezes growing deeper as they shuffled across the carpet. 

“Daddy?” Isaac’s voice shook as he followed them into the living room. 

“How many puffs did you take today?” Derek asked as he righted his husband’s posture on the couch, putting Isaac’s question off for a moment. 

“Too…many,” Stiles struggled. 

“Ize, I need you to stay here with Daddy, okay?” he asked, Isaac nodding. “I have to get his nebulizer.” 

“Do we has to go to the hosital?” Isaac asked, eyes tearing up and his lip trembling. He’d only seen Stiles use his inhaler a few times before and the sight of him hunched over as he breathed heavily on the couch made him worry that something bad was going to happen to his father. 

Derek was already up the stairs before he could answer. 

x

Derek started a breathing treatment and got Stiles settled before trying to find the cause of his hives he’d first spotted peeking out from the collar of his husband’s shirt as one of Stiles’ fingers itched around it. “Did you eat anything new?” Derek asked as he examined the raised red spots that were evenly spread down his arms. They were tiny, making it seem as if they weren’t even there until you looked closely enough. 

“No, just…have a headache,” Stiles’s voice cracked as he took the mouthpiece of his nebulizer out to talk. “Have for like…two weeks.” 

“Did you take anything for it?” 

“Whatever was in the cabinet. Aspirin, I think?” 

“Stiles, really?” Derek asked, though it seemed more like a statement than a question. He sighed and set a pair of disapproving eyes on his husband. 

“What?” he asked with his eyes so that he could get some more medicine into his lungs, unsure as to why Derek was glaring at him. 

“You never take medicine for anything other than your asthma.” 

“I’ve never…had to.” 

“People with asthma can be sensitive to aspirin.” 

“I’ve never even heard that before,” Stiles said, not wanting Derek to be right. The treatment was only helping so much and his temples felt like they’d been bashed with a sledgehammer. He wished his husband would just stop talking and close the curtains, let him be alone on the couch while he finished the rest of his medication in peace. 

“That was one of the first things I read about after Isaac-” Derek started, stopping himself from continuing. He didn’t like admitting that he’d had to research everything to understand like Stiles did. “Have you ever taken it before?” he asked quickly, hoping to change the subject. 

“No, not really,” he answered grumpily. 

“Your asthma’s been horrible the past few weeks. I bet it’s from the aspirin.” 

“That’s ridiculous,” Stiles said before taking a few more inhales of the medicated mist. “I don’t get attacks right after I take it.” 

“That’s why most asthmatics don’t know they’re allergic to it.” 

“I’m not allergic-” Stiles started, rolling his eyes. 

“You have hives. Like _systemic_ hives, Stiles,” Derek interrupted. “Haven’t you been itchy?” 

“Now that you’re yelling at me, I’m definitely starting to feel itchy!” Stiles snapped, lungs unhappy with the amount of air power he’d expelled to get the sentence out. He took a deep breath of medication and tried to power through the ache in his chest muscles. 

“I’m just trying to help!” 

“I didn’t…need…your help!” 

“Yes, you did! You came home on the verge of an asthma attack, started having one, and asked for my help, but now you’re yelling at me for it?” Derek asked, anger flashing in his eyes. 

“You’re the one…yelling!” Stiles panted, lungs overexcited. 

“Because you’re yelling!” Derek argued, his current frustration adding to that from earlier in the day. “Just like you’ve been since you got up this morning!” 

Stiles tried to shut Derek out and focus on his breathing by closing his eyes and taking in the medicated mist with careful, calculated inhales, but the anxiety was rising within him, making his throat feel itchy and tight. 

“Daddy’s weally sick and he needs us to help him breave better!” Isaac began to cry; Stiles didn’t need to look over to know his fingers were in his mouth again, the child’s speech muffled because of it. 

Stiles had wanted to protest, to assure Isaac that he was just fine and that what he had said was so sweet, but his throat was feeling even tighter than it had before and now it seemed like the medicine was only making it worse. He knew the tiny droplets were helping his airways, but it was drying his throat, making it hard to swallow, and listening to Isaac’s pained whimpering reminded him of the time just after his mother had started the first round of chemo, when she’d had a reaction to the medication and stayed hidden beneath a sea of hospital linens for days. They’d only been two weeks in to the whole cancer thing when he was convinced at just eleven years old that his mother was dying right before his very eyes. That feeling of being unable to help, watching her struggle to ask for or drink a simple glass of water, was something he could still feel so strongly even though he had to work so hard to remember what she looked like without the help of a photograph. 

“You need this,” he heard Derek say softly sometime later, the scent of bubblegum Benadryl filling his nose as he opened his eyes. He must have gotten lost in his attempts to breathe, he’d figured, attention too focused on what was supposed to be such an effortless bodily function to notice that Isaac’s tears were drying and he was holding the bottle in his little hands, sniffling as he bit his lip and waited for his dad to drink the bright pink liquid. 

Had Stiles not been so desperate to breathe, he would have turned his head away and refused, a statement he knew would have pissed Derek off to no end. But he found himself gripping the tiny plastic cup with a shaky hand, the least desired side effect from the albuterol, and downing it quickly as Derek held the nebulizer mouthpiece for a moment. 

“Ize got the Benadryl from his backpack,” Derek said softly, and Stiles was glad he hadn’t pushed the medicine away; breaking Isaac’s heart three times in one day wasn’t how he wanted their Saturday to end. 

“Thanks, baby,” he tried to smile, voice husky from the treatment. 

“Awe you gonna let Papa and me go?” Isaac asked, eyes wide and watery as he waited for an answer. 

“Let you go?” Stiles asked, confused as he took the mouthpiece back from Derek. “Why would I…let you guys go?” 

“Papa said you’re stwessed and that you didn’t mean to be mad before and that you always wanna be perfect but you gotta let things go to get unstwessed,” Isaac rambled, bottle still in his hands. 

Stiles looked over to Derek who was conveniently looking away, head tilted slightly in the opposite direction of him and Isaac. It was obvious that he wasn’t going to get any help, so he took a few inhales of the medication as he tried to come up with an honest response. 

“I do have to let things go, honey,” Stiles admitted with a small cough. “But I’d never let that be you and Papa.” 

“Never?” 

“Never ever,” Stiles promised. 

“Awe you sure?” 

“Of course I’m sure,” Stiles smiled, eyes focusing on Isaac with a softness that he could see was melting even Derek’s heart by the way one end of his lip had curved upwards. “You guys are my family and you don’t let family go without a fight.” 

Isaac seemed satisfied, a smile springing across his face and back straightening as he let Stiles’ words hang in the air. Stiles watched as his husband turned slightly towards his family, the small smile on his face proof that he was feeling somewhat better about that morning, too. 

“I’m gonna take care of dinner while you finish your meds,” Derek finally said as he patted Stiles’ leg, Stiles nodding and stretching out on the couch so that he could concentrate on the rest of his treatment; he’d work on winning his husband over completely later on once he could actually breathe. For now, he’d try to keep his eyes open so that he could make it until dinner. 

“You have goosybumps, Daddy,” Isaac said softly once Derek was back in the kitchen, Stiles feeling a too-small blanket cover just his upper body nearly a second later. “You can borrow blankie for now ‘cause you don’t feel good.” 

“Thanks, Ize,” Stiles wheezed, too tired to move now that he was nearly horizontal on the couch, the exhaustion like a weight on his body as he leaned one side of his face against a pillow, careful to keep a slight angle so that the mouthpiece still worked. 

“I sowwy about the keys,” Isaac apologized again, voice low as he looked down at the floor from his place beside Stiles on the couch. 

“And I’m sorry that I…yelled so much,” Stiles said, eyes wishing they could close now that his airways were opening. 

“It otay,” he shrugged. “I shouldn’t have stoled them.” 

“Come here,” Stiles cooed, Isaac hesitating for a moment before he came to sit on the couch near Stiles’ knees. 

“Awe you still mad at me?” the child asked quietly, afraid to look up and meet his father’s eyes. 

“No, honey,” Stiles assured him. “Not at all, especially since you wanted to apologize by making me my favorite food.” 

“Does that mean I can wead you a book now?” he asked, still slightly nervous after everything that had happened even though Stiles’ mood seemed to have been lifted. 

“How about we cuddle and you tell me all about your game instead?” Stiles asked with a smile, Isaac nodding happily at the change in his father’s body language before he wedged himself in the small crook between the back of the couch and Stiles’ body and leaned his head on his father’s shoulder. 

x

“I could have handled this morning differently,” Derek admitted as he sat in their bed besides Stiles, who was propped up with pillows against the headboard, the nebulizer going strong for the second time that night. He could sense that his husband’s chest was still extremely tight, the wheezing still audible to both of them. 

“Same,” Stiles panted, lungs tired and aching. 

“Your chest is really tight,” Derek commented, his senses on fire from the constriction in his husband’s airways. 

“No shit,” Stiles wheezed with annoyance, the angle of having sunk into the cushioning behind him causing him to cough and sit up reflexively, mouthpiece back in his mouth soon after so that he could get a few breaths of medication to deal with the sting left behind by the coughs. Derek’s hands were on Stiles’ back instantly, one rubbing in circles as his husband tried to recover. 

“I could call your dad to stay with Isaac so that-”

“No,” he stated weakly, coughing again until his chest was sore. 

“Babe, you can barely breathe,” Derek whispered, one hand falling on Stiles’ leg. “The medicine isn’t helping and your cough is getting worse.” 

“M’fine,” Stiles stated stubbornly. 

“What about urgent care?” 

“I don’t need…to go…,” he trailed, barely able to finish as another fit of coughs took over. 

“Don’t need to or don’t want to?” 

“Both?” Stiles asked, teary eyes lifting to meet Derek’s before he looked away. It wasn’t long before the nebulizer was dry, Stiles still trying to breathe easily but failing. Soon after, Derek helped his husband up and sat him on the closed toilet set in the bathroom. He started the shower and let his hand wait under the water until he was sure it was scalding hot, the bathroom filling with steam and fogging up the mirror. By then, Stiles was using his entire body to inhale and exhale, hands on his knees to hold himself up as he let out a chain of coughs. Derek peeled Stiles’ shirt up and over his head and left him for a moment to do something behind the curtain, both fathers knowing that if Isaac had been in Stiles’ condition, they would have been in the car on the way to the emergency room a half an hour ago. 

“What’s…that?” Stiles panted as a minty scent filled his nose, his lungs welcoming the moist, warm air. 

“Your dad said that eucalyptus and steam usually helps when you’re congested.” 

“You talked to him…about my asthma?” Stiles asked, irritated by the thought. 

“After you had that really bad attack that landed you in the hospital when we were dating? Yeah,” he explained, sitting on the side of the tub so that the curtain was against his back. 

He remembered watching Stiles sleep after his three-hour attack had finally calmed, body curled into a small ball beneath the blanket, the tubing from the nasal cannula beneath his nose tangled between his arms. His cheeks were still a darkened red, stark against the paleness of his forehead and chin. Derek could hear a faint wheeze every now and then, his lungs still struggling slightly, the oxygen helping Stiles compensate. 

“I can’t believe he didn’t tell you,” John had said, shaking his head from the chair beside Derek’s. “I guess I assumed you already knew, so I never brought it up.” 

“He’s had it for a while, then?” 

“Since he was a kid. Got a lot better as he got older,” he’d explained, hands moving as he spoke. “In high school you could barely tell. He probably thought he grew out of it, but I could hear it on the phone sometimes when he was stressed and away at school. Hasn’t had an attack like this in years.” 

“What do you think set him off?” Derek asked, afraid that he’d somehow been the cause. 

“Either stress or a cold. Grass and dust used to be a problem during allergy season when he was a kid, but that started to lessen once he started with the sports.” 

“He said your mom used to fill the bathroom with steam and pour eucalyptus into the tub when you were sick,” Derek explained as he took Stiles’ hand and extracted small bits of pain from his husband. 

“M’not…sick.” 

“Yeah, you are,” Derek stated, free hand going for Stiles’ chest, a few dark lines of pain moving up his arm as he pulled it from Stiles. “I can feel your congestion. All of it,” he said as he moved his hand around. “When you’re stressed your resistance goes down, which aggravated your asthma. You probably had a headache because you couldn’t breathe well.” 

“I think the…Benadryl wore…off,” Stiles wheezed, Derek uncapping the bottle he’d placed on the counter and pouring a dose for his husband, who drank it and licked the cup clean. 

“I’m going to call your dad to stay with Ize,” Derek said once Stiles went back to his labored breathing and hands-on-knees position, pulling his phone from his pocket. “We should go to the hospital.” 

“No,” Stiles said, shaking his head, hand coming up and attempting, unsuccessfully, to grab the phone from Derek. 

“Babe, the allergic reaction is getting worse,” Derek stated. 

“I’ve got it under control,” he wheezed, pressing his hand to his forehead as he tried not to cry. He tried to take a deep breath to correct the fuzzy feeling in his head, coughing instead when his lungs didn’t like the idea. 

“We can go to urgent care instead. They’re open until ten and we still have at least two hours.” 

“S’not gonna help,” he whined, shaking his head, warmth in the room making it feel like the walls were closing in. 

“They can give you IV steroids, maybe even some epinephrine. I can feel your lungs struggling to stay as open as they were before and-”

“I don’t want…to go!” he yelled, paying for the air he’d used in pants. 

“Why not?” Derek asked, matching Stiles’ attitude. 

“I’m just…tired,” Stiles half-sighed, half-sobbed. Derek slid closer to his husband on the tub’s edge and pulled him against him, Stiles leaning in to Derek’s chest. “O-of…working and…breathing…and…I wanna be _home_ …”

“Shh,” Derek soothed, rubbing Stiles’ back. “Don’t talk.” 

“…with Ize, who I scared…before…with my…wheezing…”

“He understands,” Derek explained, voice softer as he rubbed his husband’s back. “You know that.” 

“He shouldn’t…have to, though.” Stiles shook his head, tears falling down his cheeks. His nose was starting to fill, making it harder to get air. Derek could sense his husband’s desperation, the pain in trying to get a simple breath so obvious and sad, but he could also sense that Stiles was determined, despite his exhaustion, to be home and stay there, even if he felt like absolute shit. There’d be no more arguing tonight, he knew, which was why he was nodding at Stiles’ decision to stay even if it wasn’t the course of action he wanted to take. 

So he put the phone on the counter and helped Stiles up with one arm so that he could undo the button and fly of his husband’s jeans with his other hand, finally pulling his boxers down and guiding him into the shower. He adjusted the temperature so that it wasn’t too hot and watched as Stiles let the water run down over his head, shoulders, chest, and back, eyes closed as he breathed the steam in through his open mouth. Then, Derek undressed himself and took the bottle of eucalyptus he’d stowed away for years beneath the sink that was now sitting next to the shampoos and squeezed a large amount into his palm. He massaged the oil into Stiles’ pale, freckled, shoulders, the smell overwhelming his senses; he ignored it and tried to focus on his husband, paying close attention to his breath sounds. 

Derek finally knew that it was working when he heard a rumbling cough come from Stiles, followed by a few quick breaths and a series of coughs. He could feel his husband’s airways clearing a little, wheeze starting to fade as he extracted pain between rubs, Stiles’ back and shoulder muscles relaxing one by one. 

“The congestion is starting to move,” Derek smiled as he continued his work. 

“She used to…pound my back,” Stiles said a moment later, adding, “Lightly,” just to be sure that if Derek tried it, he wouldn’t end up with bruises. “To loosen it up.” 

“I can try it. Lightly,” Derek repeated, right palm hitting flat against Stiles’ back, force just enough for him to sense movement in his husband’s lungs, the only mark left behind a small red spot on Stiles’ sensitive skin. “Is that too hard?” 

“Just right,” he coughed, able to take in more air now than just five minutes ago due to the combination of the heat, eucalyptus, and physiotherapy. Derek continued, right palm meeting Stiles’ back as he pounded in a circle and then another, moving around until all he could see were red splotches. 

For about twenty minutes Derek pounded Stiles’ back and massaged his shoulders, the hiss of the shower, striking scent from the aromatherapy, and heat from the steam wrapping them in a safe cocoon where they didn’t have to speak, only breathe. It was one of the few times, Derek realized, that the two had had a moment to relax since Isaac had gotten sick in December. Their date nights (the last of which had been interrupted by Stiles’ asthma) had been so spaced out that that moment in the shower finally felt like a true reprieve from their everyday life. With Stiles breathing easier and the tension from that morning slipping slowly away, Derek, too, felt he could finally take a deep breath of his own. 

x

“I guess I just feel really guilty,” Derek sighed nearly a half-hour later from his place in bed with Stiles resting sideways against his chest, throat tightening as he sniffled to keep the tears back. He looked up at the ceiling to stop himself from crying, hoping that the break in his voice hadn’t given his true feelings on the subject away to his husband. 

“Guilty?” Stiles asked, confused as he lifted his head slightly. 

“Because I can’t take it away!” he said through gritted teeth. “I can extract the pain and get you medicine and rub your shoulders but it always _comes back._ ” 

“Would it make you feel any better if I said that’s how it is for me after Ize has an attack, too?” 

“No, not really,” Derek said, whining slightly. “Because it doesn’t change anything!” The topic was a sore one, and now that it was out in the open he worried that maybe he’d made the wrong choice. 

“Because I’m always just thinking about what _could_ happen,” he explained, eyes tearing again. “Like, what if we’re out at dinner enjoying a family night and there’s peanut oil in Isaac’s food even though we told the waiter about his allergy and the epi-pen doesn’t work? Or you’re mowing the lawn and your airways start to close and you can’t take you inhaler because you can’t get in the house and I’m not home?” 

“Der, don’t think about those things. They’re so far-fetched.” 

“But are they really?” he asked, thinking about how the second situation he’d listed had almost happened. “What if I hadn’t been home that day? What if I’d gone to get bagels or milk?” 

“You’re going to make yourself crazy thinking like that all of the time,” Stiles explained to him. 

“How could I _not_ , though, Stiles?!” Derek asked. “Your asthma is a big part of my life. So is Ize’s. Sometimes it’s all I can think about, especially when I know that one of you is on the verge of an attack. Because now my senses are keener and I can _feel_ your constriction and congestion and it breaks my heart to know what you’re going through.” 

“You made it better tonight, though,” Stiles said softly as he took Derek’s hand in his and gently rubbed his thumb over his husband’s. 

“Barely,” Derek whispered. 

“Not barely,” Stiles corrected. “I feel a lot better.” 

“You’re still wheezing.” 

“Yeah but I can take a deep breath now,” Stiles promised. “I can breathe laying down and I’m not coughing anymore. The steam and the extra dose of Benadryl really helped. That and your massage skills, which makes me wonder why you didn’t go into massage-”

“We should have gone to the doctor,” Derek interrupted, clearly still preoccupied with the idea. 

“I wouldn’t have gotten to spend the time with you, though,” Stiles said as he snuggled closer to his husband. “I would have been pumped with medication and stuck doing treatments and whisked off for x-rays and blood work. Why do you think I said ‘no’ in the first place?” 

“Because you were being stubborn like you always are, and I was going to tell you that we were going and that was it, but then you started crying, and I know how powerless you feel when you start to get really sick, so I had to let it go. I knew I could figure out a way to handle it at home if you were sure you didn’t need to go.” 

“I really just wanted to make-up for this morning,” Stiles admitted. “Because I felt awful about it all day and I knew you and Ize had too so I thought that maybe if we spent some quality time together I could show you guys that I was sorry.” 

“Is that why you were so adamant about me not calling your father?” 

“Kind of. He has enough to worry about right now,” Stiles shrugged, Derek confused by what he’d meant. 

“He’s just really lonely. Misses my mom a lot. I tried to get him to go out with one of the other deputies but he said he wasn’t ready for that yet,” Stiles sighed. “It’s hard for him because I’m not home anymore and it’s been over ten years since, you-know, and so I think the only time he isn’t really feeling alone is when Isaac goes over.” Stiles moved from his place beside Derek so that his head was against his husband’s chest, Derek’s fingers combing through his hair in gentle strokes. “I’m really worried about him.” 

“Like I am about you?” 

“You just worry too much in general,” Stiles laughed softly. 

“Only about the people I love,” Derek smiled. 

“Anyway, I’m sorry that this morning ended up the way it did. And I’m sorry I had an attack and then yelled at you for helping me.” 

Derek just nodded in understanding. 

“I wasn’t angry with you. I was mad at myself for letting my stress take over and affect everyone around me. I couldn’t get out of it. It just kept pulling me down.” 

“June needs to be here so that all of this PTA bullshit can be done with,” Derek sighed. 

“Next Saturday is a Mother’s Day sale. We have vendors coming in so that the kids can buy little presents for their moms. It starts Friday but we’re keeping it open for Saturday so that parents can go shopping, too. I have so many phone calls to make this week.” 

“Sounds like a nightmare.” 

“You have no idea,” Stiles grumbled, hiding his face in Derek’s t-shirt. The two lay there in the lamplight for a few moments, Derek trying to think of something reassuring to say. 

“We’ll get through this babe, okay?” he asked as he rubbed Stiles’ back, pulling small threads of pain here and there without his husband’s knowledge. “Just a few more weeks and we’re home free.” 

Stiles didn’t answer and Derek didn’t understand why until a moment later when he heard a soft, wheezy snore come from his husband, followed by a few more. He shook his head slightly and smiled, tapping the lamp beside his end of the bed off and closing his own eyes. 


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you for hanging in there with this next chapter! Most of it is written (and the sequel started) but I have been so busy with work that I literally haven't had a spare second until today after the Thanksgiving festivities. As always, a huge shout out to my alpha reader Casey! Without her help I'm pretty sure we would have never moved past chapter six. And thank you to all of my readers who are still with me on chapter 25.
> 
> Please review/comment, follow, and share with your friends! I love the feedback and always respond back when I am able!

The following week was a blur of buzzing alarm clocks, take-out dinners, and Stiles and Derek passing out before either one could mutter, goodnight, which is why Stiles was rushing to drop Isaac off at his Saturday t-ball game after the two had woken up late, the tires on his Jeep squealing as he turned sharply into the parking lot. He then waited anxiously to switch off with Derek after releasing Isaac to the field for the start of the game. The arrangement, a suggestion from Dr. Galler after the “hidden keys” incident, was supposed to give Stiles and Isaac a little more one-on-one time to make up for their busy schedule. Though it seemed to help his son, it only made Stiles’ anxiety about getting to the Mother’s Day sale on time worse; he found that he was reaching for his inhaler and taking puffs in front of people at the school now, something he’d refused to do even in front of his lacrosse team in high school. June, it seemed, and the end of the PTA, couldn’t come soon enough. 

Derek had run to the Glendale office to deal with some paperwork that morning but arrived just as Isaac’s the referee was blowing his whistle to start the game. There was only time for him to share a quick kiss with his husband before Stiles gave his son a wave and jogged towards his car. 

Derek watched preschooler after preschooler swing their bat and run around the diamond, the crowd supporting the players with cheers. The wind began to pick up about fifteen minutes in, dust from the field twirling in the warm morning air. Isaac was up at bat by then, the child’s form nearly perfect as Derek watched the plastic ball soar towards third base. Derek shouted, “Go Ize!” and smiled until he saw Isaac’s fingers from his right hand go for his mouth mid-run, a knot forming in his stomach as he watched his son slow down and lumber not towards second base, but off of the field towards him. 

“Need my ‘haler,” he wheezed once Derek met him beside the fence, toddler on the verge of tears as he rubbed at his chest. Derek could feel the tight constriction growing in his son’s lungs, his wheezing audible now that he was right in front of him. 

“Daddy gave you your medicine before you left,” Derek said, eyebrows knitted together in confusion and slight panic as he knelt down and went through Isaac’s bag for his inhaler and spacer; he didn’t want to overdose the toddler if he didn’t have to, especially since he knew how sensitive he was to the side effects. 

“N-no,” Isaac whined as he shook his head, panting gaining the attention of nearby parents. “H-he…f-forgot.” 

“Okay, okay,” Derek said when he realized there’d been a miscommunication, shaking the inhaler and quickly connecting it to the spacer. “Don’t talk, baby. Here we go. Deep breaths,” he coached as he secured the spacer mask around Isaac’s mouth and nose and pressed down on the canister. He repeated this two more times, the toddler breathing the medicine in with the biggest breaths he could muster. 

Derek then lifted his son into his arms with a coo and handed him his juice cup, Isaac leaning his head on his shoulder in exhaustion as he sipped. They waited a minute or so on the sidelines, Derek listening to Isaac’s wheezing settle down before he let himself take an easy breath. “What do you say we grab some lunch and head home, kiddo?” Derek asked softly as he leaned down to grab Isaac’s bag. The toddler nodded from his place in his papa’s arms and the two headed for the parking lot, Derek feeling all of the eyes of the fellow parents on him as they walked away. 

It was always like that during practices and games; peoples’ eyes would follow him whenever Isaac was in his arms or holding Stiles and Derek’s hands, their lips busy whispering. About what, Derek could only imagine; his anxious heart was thudding so loudly in his chest that it overshadowed his ability to hear their comments. 

Maybe it was about the “two dads” situation, or how they were always “babying” Isaac because of his asthma. He suddenly remembered one of the mothers asking, “He’s not really allergic to peanut butter, right? He just doesn’t like it?” at practice a month ago, could still feel the anger surging through him at her ignorant remark whenever he thought about it. Derek _wished_ that Isaac just didn’t like peanuts or strawberries, that his coughing from the dust and pollen on windy days like today was just a cry for attention. Didn’t they know how hard it was to keep him from wheezing when his peak flow was hovering between the green and yellow zones? What it was like to hear the beginnings of an attack through the baby monitor at three in the morning? 

Of course they didn’t, he thought as he loaded a tired and still wheezing Isaac into his car seat. But it also didn’t help knowing so. 

x

“Thanks for doing Isaac’s treatment this morning,” Derek said sarcastically once Stiles entered the kitchen later that night as he scrubbed a pan clean in the sink. 

“What? Oh, _shit _,” Stiles sighed heavily, tossing his keys on the counter in exhaustion. “I’m sorry, I meant to text you. I must have-”__

“Forgotten?” 

“It was a crazy morning and it just slipped my mind,” Stiles mumbled defensively, fingers rubbing at his eyes to wake himself up. “Did you put him to bed already?” 

“He’s in our bed watching Disney,” Derek explained, voice devoid of emotion as he rinsed the pan in his hands off and placed it in the disk rack. 

“He was supposed to be in bed over an hour ago!” 

“I had to give him a treatment around one and then again at five. It’s nine. I’m sure you can do the math,” Derek said as he turned the sink off and wiped his hands with a dishtowel. 

“What?” 

“He hasn’t stopped wheezing since I had to give him his rescue inhaler in the middle of the game,” Derek explained, irritation finally coming through in his voice as he hung the towel on the door handle of the stove. “It was windy and the pollen count was high. I think they may have cut the grass before the game. That plus no pre-game treatment means that I can’t get his peak flow to go back near the green zone.” There was anger in his voice, the type that Stiles remembered hearing back when their days consisted of dealing with supernatural creatures threatening Beacon Hills and the surrounding areas, back when Derek protected himself with his hard, muscular exterior, their relationship nothing more than their friendships with Scott. 

“Fuck,” Stiles sighed as he beat his fist against the wall on his way out of the kitchen, the disappointment growing within himself enough to spring tears in his eyes as he raced up the stairs to check on Isaac. 

x

“Ize?” Stiles asked softly as he sat on the edge of his bed, the toddler’s eyes closed as the mist from his nebulizer filled the fish mask on his face. Stiles pushed his fingers through his son’s curls and said his name again, the child’s eyes fluttering open. “How’re you doing, honey?” 

“Otay,” he whispered from behind the mask, still half-asleep. 

“I’m sorry I forgot your treatment this morning,” he sighed. “Is there anything I can get you that might make you feel better?” Stiles asked, feeling Isaac’s forehead, thankful he wasn’t running a fever on top of everything else. 

“Book?” he asked breathily. 

“Sure, baby. Which one?” 

“Tatertiller,” he replied, and Stiles could swear he saw a small smile beneath the mask, guilt in his heart multiplying as he left the room to find _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_ by Eric Carle. 

x

“I thought that you should have this,” Stiles’ father had said as he gestured towards the wooden rocking chair he’d placed in the corner of Isaac’s room the day after they’d adopted him. 

“Is this…,” Stiles began to ask softly as his fingers ran over the smooth, dark arm and up and around the back’s arch. “The one from when I was little?” 

“I sanded and stained it,” he explained, one side of his lips curling into a hopeful smile as he watched the nostalgia fill his son. 

“Dad, you really didn’t have to do this.” Stiles imagined his mother’s arms around him, his head against her chest, the two of them rocking gently as he did a middle-of-the-night breathing treatment. 

“I know Isaac’s not really a baby anymore, but you said the psychologist mentioned bonding through cuddling and I figured-”

“It’s not that,” Stiles whispered. His father gave a nod of understanding. 

“If it’s too much I can bring it home,” he offered. 

“No,” Stiles said, shaking his head, hand refusing to leave the chair. He took a deep breath. “I love it. And Isaac’s going to love it, too. Thank you.” 

x

“Tatertiller,” Isaac had smiled as he bent down and picked up _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_ from the basket of books Stiles had strategically placed next to the rocking chair in the toddler’s new bedroom their first August with him. 

“Good choice,” Stiles commented as he lifted the child with the book in his hands and settled him on his lap in the chair. Isaac was too busy fumbling with the pages to notice that Stiles had reached for the colorful fish mask the pharmacist had recommended earlier that day, medicine already poured into the attached reservoir to help the process go as smoothly as possible. 

The starting of the nebulizer compressor had caused Isaac to flinch, but he calmed once Stiles pointed to the source of the scary sound on the floor beside them. “It’s just like the one we used at Dr. Marmon’s office today,” he soothed as he placed the mask over his own face for Isaac to see before handing it to the child to investigate for himself. 

“Fishy!” he’d laughed when he saw the design, one hand playing with the mist coming up from the reservoir. 

“Mmhm,” Stiles hummed happily as he helped the toddler secure it against his face. “Fishy is going to help you take your medicine.” 

Isaac let out a few miserable whimpers once it was in place, tears beginning to form as his tiny hands pulled at the strap. 

“You know, I used to have to do treatments for my asthma all the time when I was little like you,” Stiles soothed as he took Isaac’s hands in his and gently positioned the toddler against his chest. “My mom would sit in this rocking chair and read books to me while I used my nebulizer.” His voice remained warm as his fingertips circled Isaac’s back, toddler’s sniffles turning into little hiccups as he calmed. “It was our special time together and I thought maybe it could be our special time, too.” 

Isaac looked up at Stiles, chest moving evenly against his as he breathed in the medication. They’d already talked about Stiles’ mommy by then, how she’d gone to heaven just like Isaac’s and loved him so so much even though they’d never met. 

“You picked one of my favorites,” Stiles smiled as he pulled the book from where it had fallen between his leg and the arm of the chair. “The very hungry caterpillar,” he began in his storytelling voice as he opened the book in front of them, Isaac’s eyes focusing on the first page where a tiny white egg lay on a green leaf. 

The toddler’s eyes remained wide as he took in the colors and rubbed at the holes and glossiness of the pages, his fascination with the growing green caterpillar’s food choices throughout the story evident in the little giggles he’d make once Stiles would reveal the next page. His behavior had made Stiles wonder if he’d ever been read to before, and the thought that moments like that were missing from Isaac’s memory were just another reminder of how thankful Stiles was to have such a sweet little boy in his life. 

And now, eight months later, with Isaac snuggled against him in the bed and his eyes smiling as they focused on the pages of his favorite book, he couldn’t help but think about how he didn’t deserve such a moment. How could he have forgotten something as important as Isaac’s medication? He could hear him wheezing despite the numerous treatments Derek had administered throughout the day, coughs that surfaced every now and then deep and chesty and so painful to listen to. 

The promise he’d made Isaac on that first day of t-ball came back to him, and he remembered his father smiling and waving at the two of them from the crowd as he kneeled before a panicked Isaac ten minutes before the start of the game. 

“But what if I can’t breave?” Isaac had asked, head down, fingers fiddling with the hem of his navy blue baseball shirt. 

“I’ll be watching from right over there with Gampa,” Stiles said as he pointed to where he’d set up chairs alongside the other parents. “And if you need medicine you can just walk off of the field and I’ll have it ready, okay?” 

Isaac hadn’t looked so sure, his head still down, bottom lip jutting out a little. 

“Remember, don’t let the fear of striking out…,” Stiles started, quoting the wooden encouragement that hung against the hallway wall beneath the stairwell of their house. 

“…keep you from playing the game,” Isaac mumbled softly, head lifting a bit as his fingers continued to play with the bottom of his shirt. 

“You don’t have to let your asthma hold you back, Ize. You’ve been taking your medicine and you know when to slow down.” 

“But I’m still scawed,” he whined, lower lip quivering. 

“I know,” Stiles sighed understandingly. “I used to get scared before games, too. But you know what?” 

“What?” 

“You’ve been practicing hard and deserve to be out there with all of your friends. And you were so excited yesterday and this morning.” 

“I don’t wanna play,” he whispered, shaking his head as tears formed in his eyes. 

“Ize, baby,” he sighed, hands taking his son’s. “You’ll be fine. _I promise_. You did your neb and inhalers this morning. Your peak flow was nearly perfect.” 

Isaac just shrugged in true Derek-style. 

“Do your lungs feel tight?” 

“Y-yes,” he admitted, tears finally streaming down his face. “And it feels like I eated butterflies.” 

“Oh, honey,” Stiles chuckled, picking Isaac up and wrapping him in a hug. “That’s not asthma, baby. That’s nerves. You’re just anxious is all.” 

“Is Papa coming?” he sniffled. 

“He’s gonna try his best.” 

“Otay.” 

“But Gampa and I will be cheering you on from right over there. See him?” 

Isaac waved shyly from his place in Stiles’ arms, confidence slightly boosted by the smile his grandfather was giving him from his place in the crowd. 

“You’ve got this, Ize. Go show ‘em how hard you’ve been practicing,” Stiles smiled as he lowered Isaac to the ground, watching as he ran over to join his team on the field. 

“He’s come a long way,” John commented from his green canvas chair once Stiles had come back over. 

Stiles had nodded as he plopped himself down into his own, knowing more than anyone else that the past seven months had been anything but easy. 

“Always used to be so afraid of the world, eyes and ears on alert like he was waiting for the next thing to go wrong,” he continued, shaking his head, hating that that was what Isaac’s life could still have been if Mr. Leahy hadn’t lost it that August night. 

Stiles didn’t like thinking about all of that, the idea always hanging like a cloud over his family, the _what if_ looming darkly, making it feel like Isaac could be ripped from them at any moment even though he knew it would never happen. 

“Do you remember how he used to keep his sippy cup in his mouth to keep himself from coughing?” John asked as cheers rose from the crowd; one of the boys on Isaac’s team had hit the ball farther into the field than those before him, allowing a girl to finally complete a home run. 

“Dad…,” Stiles trailed, slightly annoyed that the topic was being brought up in a public place, the details of his family something he liked to keep locked away. 

“I know, I’m sorry. Not really the place to discuss this,” he sighed. “But I think it’s important for you to hear.” 

Stiles knew his father was going to continue regardless of how he felt about it, so he bit his tongue and let his father go on, eyes focusing on Isaac talking to a friend as they sat on the bench. 

“Anyway, he’d be watching cartoons and a fit would start up and in the cup would go. And then when he couldn’t keep it from progressing he’d finally waddle on over and say that Balto was sick and needed medicine.” 

“I remember that stage more clearly than I’d like to,” Stiles mumbled, hoping his father would catch a hint even though he knew he wouldn’t. 

“My point is, I remember you telling me how you wished he’d just come straight to you when he didn’t feel well because it would mean he trusted you enough, that he wasn’t afraid of the little things. And we had many conversations about how you weren’t sure how to get him to that point.” John sighed, taking a moment to form his thoughts. “You thought for a long time that he might never move on from that, but here you are.” 

Stiles opened his mouth to speak but closed it when he realized his father was right. Isaac had come right up to Stiles and let him coax what was bothering him out, a change he’d barely given any notice to before. It had seemed so huge in the beginning, that Isaac explain his feelings and thoughts, and it had developed so slowly that it felt as though it had snuck up on them, had nestled into their lives without becoming visible. 

He thought back to the first month with Isaac at their house, when it was just Derek, Isaac, and himself on Saturday mornings, the then-toddler cuddled up with his blankie and Balto on the couch. 

“You okay, Ize?” he or Derek would ask after the coughing would begin, tone light as if they were asking whether he wanted milk or juice. 

“I otay,” he’d smile before sipping on his juice cup until it was dry, coughs surfacing only when the cup couldn’t keep them at bay. “More, please,” always followed that, and it had taken Stiles nearly a month to realize that the toddler was always drinking so much not because he was thirsty or that his throat was dry, but to keep himself from coughing. 

“It’s a pattern,” he’d explained to Derek as they observed Isaac watching Bubble Guppies from the carpet one Saturday morning in the beginning of October, the juice cup attached to the toddler’s lips only after he’d started going into a coughing fit. “There’s nothing left in the cup. Watch what he does when he can’t keep them from coming.” 

“Bawto doesn’t feew good,” Isaac explained as he entered the kitchen nearly fifteen minutes later, empty juice cup that Stiles had refilled twice already in one hand, the stuffed wolf in the other. 

“Does his tummy hurt?” Stiles would ask as he bent down, the next few sentences following what was beginning to feel like a script. It was how he’d noticed the pattern in the first place, why he’d even brought the issue up to Derek. 

“No,” Isaac shook his head. “He needs his ‘haler.” A small line of coughs cropped up, the toddler unable to keep them at bay because Derek was filling his cup again. 

“He seems a little scared,” Stiles would say, adding to the script. “Why don’t you show Balto how you take your medicine?” 

Isaac would shake his head, coughs continuing until it was obvious he needed medicine, too. 

“You do,” Isaac would insist as Stiles opened the cabinet to pull the medicine out. 

“Balto trusts you, though. Here, give the inhaler a good shake. Show him what a big boy you are,” he’d encouraged while Derek recapped his sippy cup. 

For a while, Isaac had refused by pulling back and increasing his grip on the stuffed animal, but sometime around the middle of December, he’d started to happily model how to take a spacer treatment; he wanted to shake the canister, put the inhaler in the slot, and hold the contraption all by himself. It wasn’t always dependable, as Isaac would sometimes ask for Stiles to do it first, but as the months had worn on, Isaac had begun to want a more active role in taking his medication, the status of Balto’s asthma soon becoming a topic that drifted almost completely out of their lives. 

“You did good, kiddo,” his father had smiled as he patted him on the shoulder, hand squeezing it as he let it linger for a moment, Stiles allowing himself to take a deep breath and smile at the thought. 

As much of a win that first day of t-ball games had felt like, though, the night after Isaac’ had had that attack during his game felt like a horrible loss, like the bases had been loaded and the crowd was cheering but he’d ended up striking out. 

He lay in the darkness hours after arriving home, swearing that he could feel Derek’s eyes on his back, imagining his jaw clenched tightly in anger even though he knew by his husband’s snores that he was fast asleep. His tired eyes focused on the red numbers of his digital alarm clock until his eyelids grew heavy enough to close, weight of the day pulling him into one of the worst sleeps he was sure he’d ever had. 


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a few more chapters left! I've been spacing them out because I need to do some last minute edits/revisions/additions. A HUGE thanks to Casey for investing so much time into this story! I know that you are busy with school but you always manage to find a moment to give me a critique. Also, thank you to all of my readers who have stuck with me thus far. 
> 
> Please favorite/subscribe/comment and share with your friends! The more, the merrier. :)

Stiles’ cell phone vibrated across his nightstand, hand reaching out on autopilot, head still pressed down into the pillow as he pulled it towards the bed. How he’d fallen asleep last night, he wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t surprised that every muscle in his body ached, the guilt over what had happened with Isaac yesterday having magnified the pain of having been on his feet all day. The phone buzzed again, this time in his hand. 

“Siri, read last text message,” he mumbled as he held the ‘home’ button on his phone down, eyes still closed as he turned so that only one side of his head was against the cotton of the pillowcase. 

“You have a message from Derek: Had to run to Newport to grab paperwork,” she read, voice computer-like. “Getting bagels on the way home. Sorry if I woke you.” 

Stiles groaned, not at anything or anyone in particular, just at the fact that it was morning and he felt like he hadn’t slept five minutes. He was afraid to open his eyes, knew by the orange glow behind his eyelids that it was at least mid-morning and probably time to get things going. With a yawn he slipped out from beneath the covers, blinking as he tried to adjust to the day. 

He yawned again as he listened to the pot of coffee finish in the kitchen, not realizing until his first sip of caffeine that he didn’t hear the usual hum of Little Bear on the living room television. Coffee steaming in hand, he shuffled across the tile to the carpet, eyes narrowing questioningly when he realized Isaac wasn’t up yet. 

x

“Good morning, sleepy head,” he smiled as he sat on the edge of Isaac’s bed and pushed his blonde curls out of his eyes, suddenly noticing his son’s flushed face and rosy cheeks. The toddler whimpered quietly before taking in a wheezy breath that made his father’s stomach clench and smile fall. 

“I c-called you…‘nd Papa b-but…you didn’t come,” he wheezed, breaths light and quick as he lay tiredly against the bed sheets. “I tookted my…‘haler…but it didn’t w-work,” he whimpered, which caused him to cough. It was then that Stiles noticed Isaac’s teal inhaler and attached spacer poking out from beneath the Batman sheets, the guilt of not hearing his son call out for him making his heart heavy and his chest tight. 

“Shh, it’s okay, baby boy. It’s okay,” Stiles soothed as he quickly lifted a wheezy and whimpering Isaac from the bed, blue blankie clutched beneath the toddler’s fingers as they made their way across the room. “Shh, I’m here now. Daddy’s here.” 

After settling them into the rocking chair and readying the nebulizer, Stiles rested the mask on Isaac’s face and let him lean one side of his body against his chest. “Just breathe for me, okay? Nice, deep breaths. Let’s get some medicine into those lungs.” He could feel Isaac struggling in his arms, mask fogging up with each forced exhale. “That’s it, honey,” Stiles cooed, rubbing the toddler’s back in gentle circles like his mother used to do for him. “Just do your best.” 

“Where’s…Papa?” he asked, looking up with teary eyes as he wheezed on. 

“He’ll be home any minute, okay? Just breathe for me, baby.” 

“I…tried,” Isaac said, voice barely a whisper, Stiles knowing he was talking about the inhaler and spacer; they’d been letting him do it himself lately in the morning to help him feel more in control. Now, it just made the current situation feel like a slap in the face. 

“You did a great job, Ize. I’m sure of it. The medicine probably just wasn’t strong enough this time,” Stiles tried to smile, but his heart was pounding and sinking and his brain was trying to figure out what to do next. 

Because he was the reason his son was gasping for air in his arms; his lack of time management, the tone he used when he told Isaac to be quiet after picking him up from school day after day because he as just so tired and couldn’t listen to another word, and the forgetting (which was, at first, just reading glasses and his plan book but had culminated with Isaac’s medication the day before) had finally caught up with him. _This_ , the pain his son was going through and the agony it was watching him do so, suddenly became too much. Stiles tried to catch his own breath as the room began to circle and swallow him whole until suddenly it was like he was drowning and he knew, then, that there was no way he was going to make it out of this alone. 

A minute or so later he heard a car skid to a stop in the driveway and the front door open, but he couldn’t leave Isaac in the rocking chair alone and there was no way he was going to turn the nebulizer off when his son was gasping frantically from the mask like it was the only thing keeping him breathing. Thankfully, Stiles picked up on Derek’s feet hurrying up the stairs, face twisting and eyebrows meeting once he saw that Isaac was doing a treatment. 

“What happened?” he asked as he rushed through the doorway. 

“I think he was h-having trouble breathing for most of the morning,” Stiles explained, trying not to get too emotional but failing as the tears began to stream down his cheeks. “H-he said he tried calling us through the monitor but we didn’t respond so he tried to give himself his inhaler.” 

“Jesus,” Derek whispered as he kneeled beside the rocking chair and looked Isaac over with concern; he’d heard the wheezing from down the block, had actually been able to feel it in his own body as he twisted his house key into it’s lock. That was always the worst part; knowing that Isaac or Stiles wasn’t getting enough air, he’d decided, was something he’d be happy to never feel again. 

x

Nearly thirty minutes later Isaac was half-asleep in Stiles’ arms on the exam table of Dr. Marmon’s office, still wheezing and in his pajamas, cheeks redder than ever from coughing. Derek had driven and seemed to be handling everything okay up until the doctor had taken one look at Isaac and called a nurse in, his eyes immediately meeting Stiles’ at the thought that maybe they should have headed straight to the ER. 

“You having a hard time, honey?” Dr. Marmon asked softly as she listened to Isaac’s chest with her stethoscope, the toddler having grown more comfortable towards her in the past few months. 

“Yes,” he whimpered, wheeze overshadowing what was already a soft response from lack of air power. Stiles was surprised he was even able to respond at all, breathing having gotten worse in the last ten minutes alone. The nurse clipped a pulse oximeter to the toddler’s right index finger, fast beeping matching his small, rapid inhales. 

“We did a treatment not even a half hour ago and he’s still just as wheezy as when he woke up,” Stiles sighed, still on the verge of tears, before kissing Isaac’s forehead. Derek had to look away after he saw that Isaac’s oxygen was only at 85, tears pricking his eyes at the thought that his son had been struggling all morning and he hadn’t even known because he’d been too far away. 

“I’m going to call Children’s and let them know you’re on your way,” she explained calmly as she put her stethoscope back around her neck. “He’s doing a lot of belly breathing and I want to make sure we get his wheezing under control. The hospital will probably put him on oxygen combined with nebulized medication, which will be a big help.” 

“No,” Isaac whined weakly, shaking his head as Stiles nodded at the doctor’s words. He stood up and adjusted the toddler in his arms. “No…hosital!” Isaac began to cry through his rapid breaths and wheezing, and at that Derek began to lose it. The silent tears blurred his vision as they exited the office with Isaac hysterical and he spent the quick drive to the hospital feeling like a failure all over again; they’d been doing so well with Isaac off of all medications except for his preventer in the morning and precautionary breathing treatment at night. They’d had plans to take him to the park to practice for tee-ball and maybe catch a movie in the afternoon. He’d thought they’d finally had Isaac’s asthma under control, that all of his worrying and watching in the past few months had been helpful in keeping the toddler from fighting for breath. 

Derek could hear Stiles attempting to soothe Isaac in the backseat as he drove, the toddler’s cries having become a series of violent coughing fits mixed with desperate attempts to inhale. He’d wanted so badly to be past this and rid of the feeling that he wasn’t in control of his son’s breathing. In that moment, though, all that he could think about was how much he loved his son and how he wished, more than anything, that they could trade places. 

x

“I’m gonna go grab a coffee from down the hall. Do you want one?” Stiles asked not long after Isaac stabilized and was finally placed in a room around 2PM, mask of oxygen and albuterol opening the toddler’s airways as he watched an episode of Sesame Street on the TV. 

He just needed a moment alone, some time with the vending machine that made a decent enough cup of coffee to open his airways; the last thing they needed right now was two of them in the hospital, and Stiles was sure his lungs were right on the cusp of an attack due to his stress level and high heart rate. 

“I’m good, thanks,” Derek said tiredly from his post beside Isaac, one arm leaning against the railing as he watched their son take now-easy breaths. 

“I’ll be right back, baby,” Stiles promised with a small smile, kissing Isaac’s forehead before heading out the door. 

A tall man not much older than Derek soon walked in with a young girl in a gown in his arms, her blonde curls a twice as long as Isaac’s. Her head was on his shoulder but she was smiling, one arm lifting just enough to give Isaac a small little ‘hello’ with a wave of her fingers. He lifted his hand an inch from the blankets and gave a small wave back. 

“I’m Erica,” she explained confidently as she rolled her Playdoh out on a table in the brightly colored playroom the next day. 

“Introduce yourself, Isaac,” Derek coaxed gently from beside him as he handed him a container of green. 

“M’Isaac,” he smiled nervously. 

“I already knew that. My daddy read your name on the white board in our room,” she stated, whipping her hair back and out of her face with a practiced hand. “Are you five yet? You don’t look five.” 

“I tree,” Isaac said as he held three fingers up, eyes counting them to make sure he had the correct amount. 

“Oh. Well, _I’m_ five and I can ride my bike without training wheels,” she went on. “And Mommy lets me help her bake ‘cause I’m a big girl and I’m going to Kindergarten next year.” 

Derek found a more comfortable seat beside Erica’s father a few feet away, the two watching and chatting as the children played with the assortment of plastic cutters at their table. 

“What are you making?” Erica asked. 

“A snake,” Isaac explained as he tried his best to roll one out with the bandage from his IV taking up most of his hand and lower arm. 

“I’m making cookies. Do you like cookies?” 

“Onwy when there’s chocolate chips,” he replied. 

“Hey, me too!” Erica smiled, and Isaac could tell it was a good one, so he smiled back. Isaac rolled a second snake out on the table, thinking about how pretty Erica was when she asked, “Why’d you have to come to the hospital, anyway?” 

“I haded a attack and my ‘haler didn’t work,” Isaac said. 

“A attack?” 

“I has asthma. Sometimes I can’t breave good and I get a bad cough. I otay now, though. They gave me med’cine.” 

Erica nodded as she used a circular cutter to create her cookies. “Is that why you had that mask on?” 

Isaac nodded. “I had to do a tweatment ‘cause I was wheezin’.” He pulled another chunk of Playdoh from his container and began to work on his third snake. “Do you have asthma, too?” 

Erica shook her head ‘no’ as she added chocolate chips to her circle cookies. 

“Awe you sick?” 

“I don’t know, I guess I just had another seizure or something.” 

“What’s that?” 

“Hey, Doc McStuffins is on! Do you like that show?” Erica asked excitedly as she pointed to the TV across the room. Before Isaac could even nod she grabbed his arm and pulled his IV pole to the carpet, holding his hand tightly as they watched the opening song. 

“She’s a ball of energy,” Erica’s father commented with a laugh as he and Derek watched the two children get absorbed in the show. “Even with all of the meds they’ve got her on.” 

“I think she’s just what Isaac needs right now,” Derek smiled softly, glad to see the toddler’s spirit lifted after everything he’d gone through in the last twenty four hours. 

“Did they say when you guys would be hightailing it out of here?” 

“As soon as his oxygen levels even out,” Derek sighed, rubbing his face. “They think it’ll be a few days; I had to beg the doctor to let him leave the room just to play for a bit.” 

“Kid had a rough night,” Mr. Reyes stated, Derek nodding in agreement as the sound of Isaac’s high-pitched wheezing and doctors’ voices from the night before filled his memory. 

Isaac could barely speak by the time the nurses had started rushing in, toddler’s already labored breathing having grown worse very suddenly at around four in the morning despite all of the medication in his system. Derek had weaseled his way in between the nurses and grasped Isaac’s little hand as they started a breathing treatment and began to pump medication through his IV. 

“He’s been intubated before,” Stiles had choked out in response to the doctor’s question on the matter, hand curled by his lips as he watched Isaac struggle against the bed through glassy eyes. “But I don’t want him to go through that again if he doesn’t have to.” He’d felt like a four-year-old as he listened to himself whine, hands shaking from the anxiety. “Isn’t there something else?” 

The doctor mentioned BPAP and Derek took his first full breath since he’d first heard Isaac’s wheezing the morning before, thankful he’d read enough articles and internet posts on the topic to make an informed decision that he knew Stiles would agree with. 

“It’s non-invasive ventilation,” he explained quietly as he held Stiles against his chest in a hug moments later while the doctors and nurses tended to Isaac. “It’s just air pressure through a mask that will make his lungs expand and then allow him exhale on his own. They’re using it more for severe asthma to keep people off of the ventilator and out of the ICU when the typical treatments don’t work as well. They can even use a nebulizer hookup to get medicine into his lungs.” Stiles had nodded, afraid to pull away and reveal his tear-stained face. Derek could hear his husband wheezing, could feel it as the two breathed against each other. Sometimes he hated having heightened senses; the pain radiating from Stiles at that moment was almost too much to bear. 

x

“This is Mr. Wind,” a young brunette respiratory therapist smiled as she lifted a clear BPAP mask with two Velcro straps up once Isaac had pushed past the peak of his attack. “He’s going to help you breathe for a little while.” 

“No,” Isaac whined, panicked eyes meeting Stiles’ as his breaths hitched. 

“It’ll be just like doing a treatment,” Stiles explained softly. “He’s just going to blow some wind on your face like Mr. Fishy.” 

“No,” he cried, turning his head towards Derek. “Papa!” 

“I know it seems scary, Ize, but Mr. Wind won’t hurt you at all,” Derek promised as he tried to keep his tears back by holding the toddler’s hand to extract some of the pain. 

“Don’t…weave,” Isaac begged. 

“We’re right here, baby,” Stiles assured him with a smile. 

Isaac cried as the small mask was secured against his face, legs kicking when the machine was started and he struggled to get used to the pressurization. 

“Shh,” Stiles cooed, kissing Isaac’s free hand. “Relax, baby. Squeeze my hand.” The therapist secured the straps and checked the connections as Isaac followed Stiles’ directions and slowly calmed down, tears sliding down the sides of his reddened face as he adjusted to the rhythm of the machine and finally got a few full breaths of air. 

“See? Nothing to be scared of,” Stiles smiled, tears still in his eyes as he held Isaac’s hand in his. “Just a little wind.” 

“Much better, huh?” Derek asked softly as he watched the toddler’s O2 levels rise on the monitor. Isaac gave a small nod as his eyes focused on the large tube connected to his mask, relief from the machine evident in the way his body had relaxed. The room was quiet except for the pressurized airflow exchange and low, even beeping from his heart monitor. 

“Close your eyes, get some sleep,” Stiles soothed once the respiratory therapist and nurses had left. “Papa and I are staying right here.” Isaac, exhausted from his attack, was out within minutes, leaving Stiles and Derek wide-awake and sitting across from each other at the sides of his bed. 

“None of this is your fault,” Derek assured his husband softly as he watched Isaac’s breaths stay full and even. 

“Then why won’t you look at me?” he sniffled, voice heavy with pain. 

“Because I keep thinking that if I look away from Isaac something bad will happen.” 

“It was one treatment,” Stiles repeated for the hundredth time that day, voice breaking as he covered his face with his hands. “I missed one out of like a million!” 

“Babe, that’s not what caused Isaac’s attack. I know I was angry about it yesterday, but even the doctor said that that isn’t what caused it. Allergy season combined with that forest fire south of us-”

“I should have upped his treatments,” Stiles sighed on the verge of tears, cutting Derek off. “I heard about the fire on Wednesday and I was going to call Marmon and ask if he should go back on Symbicort o-or the Advair because he did well-”

“Stiles,” Derek whispered, but his husband continued. 

“…on those and t-they stopped his night attacks and-”

“Stiles!” 

“You keep trying to push the blame off of me but it _is_ my fault, Derek!” he cried, trying to keep his voice low enough so that it didn’t wake Isaac or bother the family on the other side of the curtain in the room. “I could have stopped it! And now he’s covered in tubes and wires and there’s a machine helping him breathe and he’s so scared,” Stiles wheezed, turning away from the bed as he tried to keep himself from sobbing. “H-he hates hospitals!” 

“Hey, I didn’t even sense his wheezing until the middle of the game yesterday,” Derek tried to reassure him, keeping his tone low. “He was doing fine and then all of a sudden he wasn’t and who knows, maybe it would have happened even with the treatment. Sometimes it’s out of our control, Stiles.” 

He knew that. Knew it with every fiber of his being and it still didn’t make him feel any better. Because it wasn’t him in the bed getting a treatment from a mask connected to a machine sending pressurized waves of air through the tubing. No, he was the one trying to reassure his baby boy, the little one who’d looked at him with wide, blue eyes that pleaded for him to fix it. If there was one thing, _anything in this world_ that he could do, taking his son’s asthma away would be it, no questions asked. He didn’t even have to have asthma to know that deep in his heart. 

“Come here,” Derek instructed softly, patting on his lap with his free hand. 

“I don’t even want to face you right now.” 

“I’m not going to say it again: This isn’t your fault! Now, come over here,” Derek commanded, though his voice was still low. Stiles finally complied, sliding beside his husband on the cushioned lounger and curling up in his arms. “You’re wheezing, hon,” Derek whispered as he pulled Stiles close and kissed his head. 

“I know,” Stiles sniffled, curling into his husband’s embrace. 

Derek thought about pulling the extra inhaler that was always in Isaac’s bag out, but he didn’t want to move and disrupt their cuddling. So he gripped one of Stiles’ hands instead and extracted as much as the inflammation in his lungs as he could, listening to the steady inhales and exhales of his husband and son, finally letting himself fall asleep once he was sure things were stable enough, at least for them, to call okay. 


	27. Final Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter is here! 
> 
> I started writing _To Build a Home_ in December 2012 while finishing graduate school. I felt the need to write something that wasn’t in APA format with intensive research and citations, so I delved into Teen Wolf fanfiction to help keep me sane. I now have written a “book” (50,000+ words) that I would not have been able to complete without all of you, so I’d like to thank all of my readers for coming along on that journey with me. Your support has been overwhelmingly positive! Thank you for your reads, reviews, favorites, follows, kudos, etc., and thank you to Casey, my alpha/beta reader that literally drops everything to talk Sterek so that I can deliver chapter after chapter of the Stilinski-Hale family to my wonderful readers.
> 
> As sad as I am to see _To Build a Home_ completed, I am extremely excited to start editing/revising the first few chapters I have lined up for the sequel, _Hang the Moon_. Lots of changes are coming for the Stilinski-Hale family, so stay tuned! If you’d like to receive updates of the sequel, you can follow/subscribe/favorite me and the update will be delivered to your email. ☺

On the day of Isaac’s fourth birthday party, the sky was a faint blue spotted with low, wispy clouds, the air warm as California hovered on the brink between spring and summer. Stiles was finishing up progress reports in his office just before lunch, an item on his lengthy TO DO list that he wished didn’t exist. To distract himself, he retraced the night he and Derek had started discussing Isaac’s party, his pen hovering over the comments section of one report as he let himself get lost in the memory. 

“What about one of those bouncy house places?” Stiles had asked as he clicked around the local Yellow Pages website for a space to host Isaac’s birthday party. 

“So that Isaac can pick up the flu or some kind of infection?” Derek asked, raising an eyebrow over his laptop screen across the table. “Yeah, no,” he stated with a definitive tone, shaking his head as he continued to pour over the massive number of emails that had flooded his computer’s mail client earlier in the day. 

“It’ll be May by then; I highly doubt we’ll have to worry about him getting sick.” 

“Those places don’t even let you bring your own cake or snacks,” Derek argued, still invested in typing a response to a colleague. “We’re not taking any chances on that front.” 

“He’s only going to turn four once, Derek,” Stiles countered, frustrated that the search had yielded mostly expensive party planning services that there was no way they could afford. “And it’s his first birthday with us, so I want it to be special.” 

“Why can’t we just do a party here?” 

“Because none of his classmates had their parties at home,” Stiles explained before adding, “And if there’s a planned activity we don’t have to keep a bunch of four year olds occupied for three straight hours.” 

“Can’t they just play in the backyard, have cake, and leave?” 

“That is the lamest fourth birthday party I have ever heard of!” Stiles protested. 

“Do you remember your fourth birthday?” 

“No, but that doesn’t mean Isaac won’t remember this one. Plus, my dad is going to take a million pictures, so whatever we plan has to be something he won’t be embarrassed about when he’s fifteen and we’re showing his prom date baby pictures.” 

Stiles was laughing softly to himself as he remembered that last line when Erica barged in without knocking, her blonde curls swaying as she righted herself beside his desk, panting between panicked sentences. “Isaac says he has elephants in his chest! He’s making that weird sound when he breathes.” 

He was out of his chair instantly, rushing up the stairs with Erica at his heels; they’d coined the term “elephants” to help Isaac describe how tight his chest was feeling after his recent stay in the hospital when he’d found and loved the book _Elmer the Patchwork Elephant._

“We was just…playing…police,” Isaac wheezed from his place on his bedroom carpet, the plastic sheriff badge that Gampa had gotten him clutched beneath one hand, walkie talkie in the other. “And then…the elephants…gotted in my chest.” The child was on the verge of tears, each inhale a sort of hiccup that Stiles feared would turn into sobs and make his breathing worse. 

“Hey, it’s okay, Ize,” Stiles said softly as he pulled his son into his arms and then reached for the spacer and rescue inhaler from his top dresser drawer. “We’ll just take a few puffs and see how it goes, alright?” 

Isaac nodded with a series of tight coughs as Stiles shook the canister and connected the two devices, seating them in the rocking chair and resting the mask over his son’s mouth and nose a moment later. “Two breaths,” he coached after releasing a puff into the chamber, Isaac doing as he was told once more. 

Erica watched worriedly from across the room, eyes wide and full of fear. “He’s okay,” Stiles smiled as he waved her over, Isaac coughing as the air in his lungs began to move somewhat freely again. “Just needs to rest for a little while.” 

“Does he have to wear the mask?” Erica asked as she pointed to Isaac’s nebulizer, remembering it from the hospital. 

“Don’t…feel good,” Isaac wheezed as he rubbed at his chest, Stiles unable to ignore the deep frown on his son’s face and the way he was still trying to pull in air. “The elephants,” he whined, lower lip trembling. 

“You want a treatment, baby?” Stiles asked softly, Isaac nodding as he leaned into his father’s chest, coughs still coming here and there. Stiles’ heart sank as he tried not to think about how excited Isaac had been that morning; he’d bounced around the house singing “I’m four! I’m four!” with the biggest grin Stiles had seen in a while for hours on end. Sighing, he lifted them from the chair and tried to sound upbeat with, “Maybe you guys should take a break from your police game and watch a movie instead.” 

“ _Nemo_!” Erica smiled, knowing it was Isaac’s favorite and that it might cheer him up. 

“What about… _Lilo_?” Isaac asked, still a little breathless as Stiles tried to hold his son against one hip and the nebulizer against his other as they headed down the stairs.

“It’s okay if you wanna watch _Lilo_ instead,” Erica offered sweetly, even though it was obvious that she really wanted to watch her favorite undersea adventure. Isaac was too busy trying to catch his breath to notice, though, his attention focused fully on Stiles as he set him up on the living room couch for a breathing treatment.

When Stiles returned to deliver a small bowl of popcorn and check on the two a few minutes later, he found that Isaac was sleeping mid-treatment, head cocked to the left as Erica’s hand grasped his right, her brown eyes busy watching Lilo run around the screen after Stitch. He placed the bowl beside Erica and gave her a small smile, grateful that Isaac had finally made a friend, especially one that didn’t care about what made him different. 

Because for the last two weeks, all that Isaac repeated was _Ewica says_ , words fast as he explained, in detail, story after story that he heard from her. Stiles had never seen the child so excitable, so _happy_ , and he wondered if he and Derek had been the cause of his lack of socialization; he’d never really had a friend over until Erica. With everyone’s schedules it had never worked out, especially once Stiles had started the PTA and Isaac’s t-ball games had picked up. There were ten other children coming in just four hours to celebrate, but Stiles hadn’t really met any of them, just watched as Isaac pointed them out when he picked him up from school or as he laughed with them during t-ball practices and games. 

He stopped to peek in on Isaac and Erica here and there as he finished hanging streamers and putting out plates for pizza, the hope that Isaac would feel better by the time his friends arrived preoccupying his mind until he was distracted by the dryer signaling that it had finished and the subsequent folding of a heavy load of clean clothes. When Derek arrived home a half an hour later, Isaac was still asleep on the couch, Stiles having removed the mask and shut the nebulizer off fifteen minutes into the movie. 

“Something isn’t right,” Derek sighed moments after Stiles explained what had happened. He unwrapped the cake they’d had made at a local nut-free bakery (a perk of living in the Los Angeles area) and made sure that it was arranged neatly on a tray. “He doesn’t usually need a treatment after his inhaler.” 

“I don’t know,” Stiles sighed, hands on his hips as he tried to piece together the day. “It was like the t-ball game; he was fine and then he wasn’t. I did his neb this morning. He wasn’t even wheezing until he had the attack.” 

“Kid can’t even have a birthday without getting sick and needing meds,” Derek grumbled angrily under his breath, hands squishing the cardboard box that the cake had been in into a ball. He launched it at the wall, the mangled mess hitting it with a loud _thwack_ before it fell right into the open garbage can. 

“Papa?” Isaac asked wheezily from the doorway, one hand rubbing his eye as he coughed. 

“Hey, baby,” Derek smiled, voice soft as he turned around and picked him up, instantly able to feel the pain in his son’s chest as he balanced him on his hip. “How’re you feeling?” 

“Still some elephants,” he said, words breathy as he leaned his head tiredly on Derek’s shoulder. 

“I can hear that,” he replied, pulling small threads of pain from his son’s body. 

“I told them to go away but they won’t,” he coughed, hand coming up to cover his mouth. 

That’s when Derek first noticed the hives, his hand taking hold of Isaac’s wrist and inspecting it further. The red bumps were scattered, causing him to pause and think for a moment before lifting up Isaac’s shirt to reveal a hive-covered belly. 

_No_ , he’d wanted to say as his stomach dropped. _This isn’t fair. He finally gets to have a birthday party and he’s covered in hives. There isn’t even anything strawberry or peanut in the house!_

“I don’t wanna have my party,” Isaac sniffled in his papa’s arms, fingers going for his mouth as he tried not to cry. 

“Aw, don’t say that, Ize,” Stiles smiled from across the kitchen as he pulled the plastic wrapping from a package of Batman cups, still unaware of Derek’s discovery. “Why don’t you go finish _Lilo and Stitch_ with Erica and rest until your friends get here?” 

“He has hives,” Derek said, the sentence coming out garbled as he tried to find his voice amid the tears in his eyes. 

“What?” Stiles asked, not sure if he’d heard his husband right. 

“Hives. They’re all over his stomach,” Derek explained as he lifted Isaac’s shirt again, Stiles coming over, his eyes closing and a curse escaping his lips once he saw the patches on his son’s abdomen. He opened them a moment later to scan Isaac’s face and arms, taking notice of how quickly the rash was growing across his body. 

“Is your throat itchy, honey?” Stiles finally asked, pulling the cabinet closest to them open and reaching for the Benadryl. 

“No,” Isaac whined, clearly uncomfortable in Derek’s arms. “Just don’t feel good.” 

“What did he eat today?” Derek asked while Stiles attached the oral syringe to the neck of the medicine bottle and pulled the correct dose of pink liquid from it. 

“We had banana pancakes for breakfast. I let him have some grape juice and pretzels when Erica first came over. I was going to do lunch once he woke up from his nap, but he slept for longer than I thought he would.” 

“Are you sure that’s it?” 

“What, you think I gave him something he can’t have?” Stiles asked defensively as he came over and helped Isaac take the medicine. 

“I didn’t say that,” Derek stated, beginning to feel agitated. 

“But that’s what you were implying! That I gave him something to eat and that’s what caused his hives!” 

“That isn’t what-”

“No shot!” Isaac began to cry as he listened to his parents argue, fingers in his mouth causing Benadryl-pink saliva to fall from his lips. “No shot!” 

“Ize, it’s okay. You don’t need the epi-pen,” Derek tried to soothe as he rubbed his son’s back. 

“No more!” the four-year-old cried. “No more med’cine!” 

Nothing quite broke Derek and Stiles’ hearts as much as that line; it was the one thing they couldn’t promise, but also the one thing they wished that they could. It stopped both parents from adding to the fight just then, the two looking from each other to Isaac as he continued to be hysterical in his papa’s arms. 

“Just wanna…sleep,” Isaac cried as he hid his face in Derek’s shirt, the raw emotion in his voice causing a tear to fall from Derek’s eye. 

x 

Stiles fixed a grilled cheese sandwich for Erica and let her eat on the couch, _Nemo_ beginning on the TV screen as he walked upstairs to check on his husband and son who he’d sent up nearly ten minutes earlier. 

“The hives went down,” Derek whispered as he rubbed Isaac’s back, the child sound asleep beneath the covers. 

“He still wheezing?” Stiles asked softly as he kneeled on the free side of Ize’s bed, knowing his husband would be better able to sense if something was off about their son’s breathing. 

“It’s faint. More than he was this morning when I left, though. The Benadryl should take care of that once it gets through his system.” 

“I just wish I knew what was making him so sick,” Stiles sniffled, a wave of guilt washing over him at the thought. 

“The forest fire is still burning south of us,” Derek offered, but even he knew it wasn’t the cause. 

“That wouldn’t give him hives,” Stiles whispered, trying to keep the tears stinging his eyes from falling. 

“I know,” Derek sighed, shaking his head, wondering why he’d even brought it up in the first place. 

“It had to be something he ate but I didn’t give him anything new!” Stiles nearly sobbed, covering his face as he tried to keep it together and not wake Isaac. “I’m always so careful; I wouldn’t feed him something he can’t have!” 

“Hey,” Derek said softly, one hand pulling Stiles’ from his face across the bed; his husband turned away, face twisting as he tried not to let the emotion building up within him out. “I believe you, babe.” 

“B-but what if I did and didn’t _know_?!” he continued, nearly hysterical as his eyes locked with Derek’s. “W-what if the pretzel brand we buy changed their processing? Or the package wasn’t labeled?” Derek could see the sadness in Stiles’ eyes, felt the weight of their sorrow in his own. How many times had he looked and felt exactly like that? Beyond the distress he could sense his husband begging him to find a way to make this better, his jaw tight as he focused his attention on Isaac. 

“There’s a doctor at Mattel Children’s who specializes in allergies and asthma,” Derek started, hoping his husband would catch on to where he was going with the information. “He’s supposed to be one of the best.” 

“We searched day and night for someone like Dr. Marmon the entire week before we got Ize. She doesn’t even take our insurance but she was nice enough to take us on anyway. You know she’s the best out there,” Stiles argued, defensive towards the idea. 

“I think she’s great as his pediatrician, and I think she did a great job with Ize’s asthma in the beginning, but I can’t help but fear that he’s developing more allergies,” Derek stated. “What if the hives are from something new? Or something we don’t know about?” 

“He was tested, though.” 

“Over a year ago when he wasn’t even three yet.” 

It took Stiles a few seconds to decide, but he finally sighed and said, “I can call Monday, but I doubt they’ll-”

“I already did,” Derek interjected, Stiles’ surprise evident in the way he narrowed his eyes at the information. “When I was taking a coffee break I did a search online and found a guy named Dr. Oslo,” he explained. “There was a long wait, but I spoke to Ize’s doctor in the hospital and she contacted his office to get them to move up the appointment.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” Stiles’ agitation towards Derek’s keeping the information behind his back was evident in the way his tears had mostly dried and his cheeks were starting to grow reddish. 

“Because I thought maybe that if Ize did better after this last hospitalization that I could just cancel the appointment and we’d be fine, but he’s still so sick and it seems like he’s getting worse and I can’t watch him struggle to breathe anymore!” he whisper-yelled, tears clouding Derek’s eyes as they met Stiles’ for a brief moment before his palm connected with Isaac’s back and he rubbed in gentle circles, extracting small bits of pain from his son’s body so that it was barely noticeable. 

“Der,” Stiles whispered, unsure of what to say next. Because his husband was watching over their son like he was full of fear, his senses preoccupied with the wheezing that Stiles couldn’t even hear anymore but knew was there. 

“You can be mad at me. It’s fine,” Derek promised, attention still focused on Isaac as he sniffled. 

“I’m not mad,” Stiles promised, annoyed with himself for having gotten so angry so quickly over something that could actually help Isaac. “It’s just been a long, exhausting day and his party hasn’t even started yet.” 

“You seem like you’re trying not to say what you really think about the allergist appointment.” 

“Because I don’t know whether to be annoyed with myself for not calling myself or if I should just say _thank you_.”

“You don’t have to say thank you,” Derek said with a small laugh, shaking his head at the ridiculousness. “You would have done it if I hadn’t jumped to it so quickly.” 

“When is it?” 

“June first.” 

Stiles took a deep, calming breath and reached across the blankets, his hand resting on Derek’s as it continued to soothe Isaac as he slept, both father’s hoping that the appointment would give them some peace of mind, just enough, at least, to get them through until July. 

x

Stiles reached for top shelf of their bedroom closet nearly an hour later and pulled the gift wrapped in Batman paper into his arms. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a piece of paper flutter by. Assuming it was a receipt, he waited until he placed Isaac’s present on the bed before bending to pick it up. 

On what he realized was a long paper napkin was Derek’s typical scrawl, the letters boxy and thin and rushed. He was about to toss it in the bathroom garbage when he read _Dear Isaac_ out of compulsion, eyes continuing to follow the letter curiously. 

Dear Isaac, 

I know things haven’t been easy since we came into each other’s lives, but I want you to know that I wouldn’t change being your dad for the world. 

I let you sleep in yesterday since the day before had been crazy and you were up so late doing treatments. I should have checked on you like I usually do, but I didn’t. Instead, I ran to the office to deal with paperwork and get things ready for the week. I had really wanted to surprise you with chocolate chip pancakes because I knew that you’d love them so much that you’d be wearing them in seconds, that they would make up for the awful Saturday you’d had. I was going to make them when I got home. I wish that that was how our morning had gone. I wish it more than you know. 

When I rushed into your room after work and saw that you were doing an emergency breathing treatment with Daddy in the rocking chair, it felt like my heart was on fire. You were using your whole body to breathe and could barely speak. We rushed you to Dr. Marmon’s, but I knew once I saw how low your oxygen levels were where we were headed. 

I had to drive while Daddy tried to calm you down. Your attack was getting worse and you were crying so hard that you were having apnea spells. I probably would have been doing the same, too, if it were me in your shoes, and I’ll admit that I did shed a few tears right before we carried you in to the ER. I tried not to let you see them because I thought it’d make everything worse. 

I know that hospitals scare you more than anything else and it killed me to have to make you go there again. They’re not my favorite place, either, but you were a very sick little boy and Daddy and we had to do what we thought was best. We promised to hold your hand, that we we’d be staying right there and wouldn’t leave you no matter what. That you’d feel better soon once the doctors gave you the right medicine. 

It took countless breathing treatments, IV steroids, and a few hours on oxygen and BPAP to get your breathing under control, but you were a champ the entire time. You let the doctors and nurses listen to your lungs without flinching or whimpering. You didn’t try to take the nebulizer mask off at all. And, you even made a friend in the playroom over Play-Doh once you were feeling a little bit better. I want you to know how proud I am of all of the progress you’ve made in the past eight months and that I’d go through it all again a hundred times if it meant that you’d always be my baby boy. 

I know it doesn’t seem like it all the time, Ize, but you are on my mind every second of the day. I love and worry about you whether you’re thousands of miles away or in my very arms. I stand in your doorway at night and listen to you breathe, even though I haven’t sensed an attack coming on. I don’t even eat peanut butter when I’m away on business trips. Truth be told, I feel like less than myself when you’re not there. You’re my little shadow, the one person who sees the world in me even when I think I’ll never be enough. (Besides your Daddy, of course, but that’s a different story.) 

You spent Sunday fighting for air, but all you wanted was to hold my hand. You didn’t even ask, just nudged my fingers with yours and looked at me with those big blue eyes over your mask. I wanted to fix it, to take away all of your pain and replace it with comfort, and I tried, baby, please believe me when I say that I did, but deep down I knew it wouldn’t be enough. So I just held your hand and took what I could to give you a few hours of sleep while you were on the BPAP. 

I may not have always been your father, honey, but I want you to know that you’ll always be my Isaac, no matter what. 

Love, 

Papa

By the time he read _Love_ , Papa, Stiles was teary-eyed and sniffling, his hand covering his mouth as he tried to keep himself from full-on sobbing. He’d never known how guilty Derek felt when he tried to help during their attacks but could only do so much, or how he truly felt about having Isaac in his life. He’d only ever been able to assume all of that, let it settle in the back of his mind and heart without ever really knowing. Derek had always been so quiet and serious, so concealed behind his hard exterior; reading the napkin letter had finally given Stiles a window into Derek’s heart and mind in a way he didn’t know he’d needed until that very second. 

“I sent you in here like ten minutes ago,” Derek laughed as he walked through the doorway. “I don’t remember the set of plastic tools being _that_ heavy.” 

Stiles quickly wiped away his tears and shoved the napkin into his back pocket to keep it from his husband, hands going to grab the present and keep him from catching on. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked when he saw that Stiles had been crying, one arm coming up to land on his shoulder and stop him from getting the gift. 

“Just sad that Ize is growing up,” he lied, sniffling again as he tried to keep a sob in, the one waiting to break out since he’d read his husband’s words on the napkin. He tried to take deep breaths but found that his lungs were failing him, inhales and exhales quickening now that he’d been put on the spot. 

Derek’s eyebrows met at the bridge of his nose, senses picking up on the fact that Stiles was deviating from the truth. “Stiles,” he warned. 

“I just…,” Stiles started, lips pursing as he held his breath to hold the sob back. 

“Just what, babe?” Derek asked softly. 

Stiles couldn’t speak, couldn’t even breathe, so he pulled the napkin out and handed it to Derek, looking away as he imagined his husband reading it, the heavy sigh expelled a few seconds later letting him know that it hadn’t been placed on the top shelf of the closet to be found. 

“Dr. Galler told me that writing to Isaac might help me get through everything I’ve been feeling,” Derek finally said, his eyes focused on the rumpled paper in his hands. 

“When did she say that?” Stiles asked, looking up with a small sniffle. 

“After he had pneumonia. I called her while I was in Chicago,” he explained, unsure of what to do with the napkin. “He was still so sick and I was worried because I knew that if something happened again that…that I wouldn’t be able to get home right away.” Derek’s voice broke at the end, tears sliding down his cheeks as he did a sniffle of his own. 

“You could have told me you were scared, Der,” Stiles whispered as he took his husband into his arms, feeling his own tears finally wet his cheeks. 

“I didn’t know what I was feeling at first, though,” he cried softly. “A-and I couldn’t tell Galler about it even though I wanted to, so I started writing little letters like she suggested. I didn’t have anything to write on at the hospital so I grabbed a napkin and just let it out while he was playing with Erica.” 

Stiles couldn’t help but think about how Derek had been trying so hard the past few months to find his way. How difficult everything had really been for him; Isaac's asthma, his. The traveling and the worrying. Their jobs. The hospital stays. 

"I'm supposed to be your protector," he sniffled, turning away from Stiles so that he could wipe under his eyes. "Supposed to be able to heal you guys and keep you safe from suffering. And I c-can't." Derek choked on that last word, the guilt obvious in his wide amber eyes. "The asthma is too chronic, too constrictive. I can't keep it at bay for long periods of time. I can't cure it." 

They’d had versions of this conversation before, but suddenly, Stiles gets it, what Derek has been feeling for the last nine months. It doesn't seem so small anymore, so insignificant. It makes sense, has context. He knows now that Derek calling him a million times while away on business and scrutinizing labels at the grocery store and stocking up on albuterol sulfate nebules was all out of fear. The fear that the two people he loved the most would be in pain and that he wouldn't be there to fix it. That maybe, one of those times, he would be too _late_ , an attack reaching a point of no return because he was 3,000 miles away. 

That was kind of already happening, Stiles realized; his asthma was out of control due to stress, Isaac's from a mix of allergies. It was always so touch-and-go with the both of them, their health dependent on a set of variables that Derek couldn't juggle all at once. 

"Babe, you do more than you know," Stiles assured him, wrapping his husband in a hug as best he could despite the fact that he knew Derek didn’t typically like body contact when he was emotional. Stiles did it anyway, though, because he could tell that Derek needed it, and he did, too. 

"It's not enough," Derek whispered, shaking his head. "Isaac's wheezing and he has hives on his birthday and I can't change any of it! I can heal wounds and take away pain but I can't make it go away on his birthday." 

"Do you even know why I picked out the tools as his gift?" Stiles sniffled, tucking his head under Derek's chin. “He absolutely adores you, and last weekend he had his little face pressed against the glass for nearly an hour while he watched you fix the deck. It was like he was mesmerized." 

“I wanna help Papa,” Isaac had complained, breath fogging the glass door up with every wheezy exhale. Stiles was busy wiping the table up after their lunch of soy butter and jelly sandwiches, the house cool from the air conditioning they hoped would help clear some of the pollen that was keeping Isaac inside after his last big attack. 

“Why don’t you help me make cookies before your next treatment instead?” Stiles asked as he pulled a container of flour from the cabinet. 

“But I wanna use the tools like Papa!” Isaac whined, pulling his face away from the glass, hands still staying in their place. 

“Those tools are for grownups, honey. We don’t want you to get hurt.” 

“I pwomise I won’t!” 

“There’s too much pollen in the air today. We can do fun things inside instead, though.” 

“I’m never gonna be big and strong like Papa,” Isaac sighed, head hanging low as he trudged towards the living room. 

“But you’re already so big and strong,” Stiles assured him as he placed the flour on the counter. 

“No, I’m not,” he whined with a frown. “I can’t even play outside ‘cause I’m wheezin’.” 

“You’re big and strong to me,” Stiles tried as he kneeled down beside his son and stopped him from walking away by pulling him gently around the waist with both hands. “When we took you home you were so small,” he smiled, Isaac purposely turning away in frustration. “And you cried every night for weeks because you were so scared of your new home and your new family. But then you became stronger and braver and you started to try new things. And you grew and grew because you were getting stronger and braver and now you’re our big boy and we are so proud of you.” 

“But I’m only tree,” Isaac said, putting up three fingers and counting them with his eyes. “Not that big.” 

“Closer to four now,” Stiles smiled, holding up four fingers. “You were three when you came to us, but now you’re getting older.” 

“And bigger and stronger,” Isaac repeated softly as he put one more finger up so that he had four to count. 

“Mmhm,” Stiles assured him, the child running over to his basket of books in the corner and digging until he pulled a yellow and blue softcover free. 

“Just like my papa,” Isaac smiled, holding the lion-themed book up for Stiles to see, the title matching his words. “And my daddy!” he explained as he brought it over to show him. 

“You love this book,” Stiles laughed, examining the worn corners and the small rips from where the pages had been turned countless times. 

“Papa!” Isaac shouted excitedly when Derek appeared in the doorway, the book still in his hand as he rushed over and pushed it up at his father. “Can you read this?” Isaac asked before coughing deeply, his wheeze heavier from all of his running and excitement. 

“How about Papa takes a shower while I get your treatment ready so that he isn’t covered in pollen?” Stiles asked as he joined his family in the kitchen. Isaac continued to cough, the book staying in his grip even as Stiles lifted him and went to bring him up the stairs. 

“Promise you’ll be…quick?” Isaac asked breathlessly from Stiles’ arms as Derek followed. 

“Like lightning,” Derek smiled, kissing Isaac’s forehead before bolting past them to the shower. 

“You underestimate how much he loves you,” Stiles whispered, his arms around Derek’s middle and ear against his chest after relaying the story behind buying the plastic tools. 

“Because I’m never sure,” he answered, voice barely a whisper as he leaned his head down on Stiles’ shoulder. 

“Just because it wasn’t always unconditional doesn’t mean it isn’t now.” 

The two stood there in the bedroom for a little while longer, too comfortable in their embrace to move. It wasn’t until Isaac appeared in the doorway that the two lifted their heads, the four-year-old giggling happily and wedging himself between their legs so that he could smile up at them, his blue eyes melting their hearts, a much-needed lightness filling the three of them just before the party began. 

x

“Go ahead, blow ‘em out, bud,” John said as he nodded towards the Batman cake with a wide smile. 

“Make a wish,” Derek added, Isaac smiling before he sucked in as much air as he could and concentrated it right on the waxy, polka-dotted four and the five skinny candles atop his cake. One flame was left standing, the child catching his breath for a few seconds before trying once more to get it to go out; Erica watched patiently, itching to jump in but knowing that it wouldn’t be fair to her new best friend. Everyone clapped once it was extinguished, Isaac included, before Stiles pulled the cake from the table brought it into the kitchen to be cut. 

“I did it, Papa!” Isaac cheered as he rushed into the kitchen, slamming right into Derek’s legs and wrapping his little arms around them as best he could. “Ewica didn’t even have to help me!” 

“That’s my baby boy!” Derek grinned as he pulled Isaac up and put him on his shoulders. 

“Papa!” Isaac giggled as he held onto his head, hands covering Derek’s eyes like always. “I’m not a baby anymore!” 

“You’ll always be my baby, Ize,” Derek explained, tone turning tender and reassuring as he slowly moved his son’s hands so that he could see. 

“Pwomise?” 

“Forever and always,” he smiled, Stiles grinning as he placed slice after slice of cake onto paper Batman plates. 

“Where’s that cake at?” John asked excitedly as he eagerly rubbed his hands together upon entering the kitchen. Stiles handed his father a plate with a small slice and plastic fork before going back to cutting the first half of the cake. “That’s all you’re gonna give me? It’s my grandson’s fourth birthday!” he joked, digging in and humming at the sweetness. “I _am_ carrying a lethal weapon, you know,” he continued playfully. 

“And if you want the nut-free cake…,” Stiles started. 

“I’ll have the nut-free cake!” John finished, scraping a chunk of frosting from the plate before licking the fork clean. 

“Gampa!” Isaac giggled, pointing at the crumbs falling from John’s lips onto the tile floor. “You makin’ a mess!” 

“Am I?” he asked, mouth full. 

“Yes, silly!” he said, clearly delighted by the conversation as he smiled atop Derek’s shoulders. 

“Well, in that case…,” John started with a smile before taking a chunk of frosting from his plate and smearing it right onto Isaac’s nose. 

Stiles just listened to the playful banter bounce between his father, husband, and son, their laughter filling the kitchen and following them as they moved back out into the dining room to help hand out cake. He stayed behind, wrapping the second half up to place in the refrigerator, the echo of the excitement in the room over causing him to smile to himself. 

As he closed the cake behind the door of the refrigerator, the pictures hung behind alphabet magnets on the stainless steel door suddenly caught his attention. There was Isaac in his t-ball pictures, smiling shyly beneath his golden locks as he tried to hold the wooden bat up like Derek had taught him, and the three of them at the Dodgers game in their jerseys, Derek with a beer and Stiles with a half-asleep Isaac in his arms. His eyes trailed down the litany of photographs that had accumulated beneath the brightly colored letters, scenes ranging from Isaac in the bathtub with a bubble beard to Derek in a suit at the dining room table, Isaac smiling in his lap as his father focused diligently on the computer screen, his fingers working at the keyboard. 

It made him think about how they had somehow succeeded in building a home with their bare hands, assembling it brick by brick without any set of directions to follow for nine full months. It had been trial and error the entire way, and Stiles couldn’t help but liken the experience to the time he’d held a paralyzed Derek up in the pool for two hours while the Kanima watched him struggle. He’d played his fear off with sarcasm as their skin pruned in the chlorinated water that night, but now, with Isaac battling hives and a low, steady wheeze on his birthday, Stiles couldn’t help but feel drained; he wondered how they hadn’t drowned, how they had actually made it to Isaac’s birthday. 

When he was done in the kitchen, Stiles stood in the entryway between the dining room and kitchen and quietly observed the pandemonium that was twelve preschoolers attempting to eat cake. Watching Isaac giggle with Erica like he didn’t have a care in the world made him think about how he’d managed to open Stiles and Derek up like a little key to a giant lock, granting them the permission they needed to let the pain from their pasts hurt just enough for each of them to work at moving on and growing a family with the love they’d once kept safe in distant, heavily guarded memories. 

His eyes then fell on Derek, who, two weeks earlier, had come home from Kohl’s with a wooden plaque for the wall that read, “Because someone we love is in heaven, there’s a little bit of heaven in our home.” Stiles had just felt a deep sadness take root inside of him that returned each time he walked past it. But now, as he glanced at it from across the full room, he realized that it was more a symbol of love than anything else. Of memories past, the seeds that had started what he could now call the Stilinski-Hale family. His family. _Theirs_. 

Suddenly, his husband’s eyes were in line with his, the small, content curve in his lips filling Stiles with a calmness he hadn’t felt in what seemed like forever. He took a deep breath, and then another, Derek refusing to stop the strong connection flowing between them until he made his way over past the chairs and parents and their children and grabbed Stiles’ hand, kissing him slowly and softly on the side of his neck as he embraced him in a haphazard hug. 

Stiles didn’t even care if their guests were looking or if the heat growing in his cheeks was a visible, rosy blush; Derek Hale had just publically displayed affection, and all that Stiles could do was let himself melt into it, allow his muscles to fully relax, and breathe. 


	28. Chapter 28

Author's Note: Just letting everyone who loved To Build a Home know that there is a sequel, Hang the Moon. I received a few messages of people looking for the sequel. Click on heartofcathedrals and it's right on the top of my page! Please read and review. <3

Hang the Moon: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1461598/chapters/3079024


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